Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical

by Sciabarra, Chris

  If the Symbolists saw reality as the basis of art, they saw art itself as the essential creative human activity. Art was the means of creating a new culture that would transcend the limitations of the old. Literary artists were exalted for their desire to solve existential questions and to achieve the Ideal.22

  While Rand would have opposed the explicitly Dionysian ideal of Russian Symbolism, she appears to have fully absorbed its impulse to transform culture through art. Though Rand had argued that “art is not the means to any didactic end,” she acknowledged that one of its most important “secondary consequences” is its ability to educate and influence.23 In this regard, Rand’s Romantic Realist credo is similar in spirit to Socialist Realism. The Socialist Realists believed that art was a positive, constructive, political activity. The artist served as a critic of the social order, projecting a dialectical resolution. When Stalin described the writer as the “engineer of the human soul,” he echoed the beliefs of the Nietzschean Marxist God-builders, who saw art as the prime mover of this social transformation.24 The new Soviet man was projected as an integrated being of theory and practice, a thinking man of action. In characterizing art as the “technology of the soul,” Rand projected a different ideal achieved through similar literary means.

  Rand’s literary method of actualizing this ideal was fully Russian. Like Dostoyevsky and other writers of the Golden Age of Russian literature, Rand created characters based on the ideas they embodied. This method sometimes lacks the depth of an approach in which the characters’ psychological development is detailed. It seeks conflict resolution in the interactions of characters who embody key principles (N. Branden 1989, 88).

  In writing her fiction, Rand began with the real-concrete, that is, with the world as perceived by her in all of its particularity. Through inductive reasoning and abstraction, she broke down the whole into concepts. Her characters became thought-concretes, reconstituted on the basis of her abstraction. She stated: “My characters are persons in whom certain human attributes are focused more sharply and consistently than in average human beings.”25 These characters embody essential principles. Their actions arise from ideas that inform their identity. Rand omits the accidental and the contingent from her characterizations, while she emphasizes primary motivations. In the novel, as in life, Rand was “interested in philosophical principles only as they affect the actual existence of men; and in men, only as they reflect philosophical principles. An abstract theory that has no relation to reality is worse than nonsense; and men who act without relation to principles are less than animals” (107–8).

  Rand concretized her abstractions in the characters of her creation. In The Fountainhead, for instance, she isolated and identified the principles, stages, and variations of what she called the “diseased ego.” Based on this broad abstraction, Rand created a range of characters representing “second-handers”—those who lived through others, rather than by their own effort.26

  Rand believed that her literary method was an instance of the creative process in general. In her view, “the creative process is, in a way, the reverse of the learning process.” Both learning and creativity constitute a cycle in which there is a movement from the “concrete to the abstract to the concrete.” In creating her characters, Rand first derived abstractions from concrete instances. She then concretized the abstraction “in order to achieve [her] own purpose (in the concrete).” In her notes for Atlas Shrugged, she wrote:

  In order to think at all, man must be able to perform this same cycle: he must know how to see an abstraction in the concrete and the concrete in an abstraction, and always relate one to the other; he must be able to derive an abstraction from the concrete … then be able to apply this abstraction both as guide for his future specific actions and as standard by which to judge the specific ideas or actions of others.27

  In Rand’s view, those who accept one part of this cognitive cycle, but not the other, are doomed to partiality and distortion. “The cycle is a cycle,” Rand emphasized. The cycle is “unbreakable; no part of it can be of any use, until and unless the cycle is completed” and rationally grasped by the mind. Rand compared the process to an electric circuit, which must remain unbroken if it is to generate a current. A circuit “does not function in the separate parts,” Rand wrote. Indeed, “the parts, in this case, are of no use whatever, of no relevance to the matter of having an electric current” (6).

  But in describing the reciprocal relationship between these two modes, Rand emphasized the primacy of learning. For Rand, “the first, basic principle (a kind of first sub-purpose) preceding every other specific purpose is the purpose of gaining knowledge.” This principle stems from her conviction that existence, not consciousness is primary. Although learning and creativity cannot be bifurcated, Rand preserved their asymmetric intemality. She explained: “The process of learning has as its purpose to acquire knowledge. The process of creation is the process of applying one’s knowledge to whatever purpose one wishes to achieve” (4). Knowledge must always precede creation. Rand’s literary inventions are not floating abstractions cut off from reality. Her fictional characters are intensely one-sided representations of principles and phenomena that exist, though not usually in pure, isolated form.

  Both cognition and creation involve “the rational process.” In drawing abstractions from acquired knowledge, or in concretizing these abstractions back into specific concrete embodiments, Rand saw the same principle at work. Cognition and creation constitute a “completed cycle,” which is characteristic not merely of literary method, but of all human activity. Rand suggested that human activity as such, is creative, for in all of their activities, people concretize their abstractions in the achievement of their distinctive purposes.

  In each of her novels, Rand’s characters are the kinds of one-sided concretes she wants them to be.28 In their partiality, these characters interact as constituents of the organic unity that is the novel. The logic of the principles motivating each character unfolds through concrete actions, events, and circumstances, through interrelationships and conflicts that Rand created from the synthesis of her imagination. And for Rand, the story itself becomes the embodiment of that synthesis. As she states in a letter to Gerald Loeb (5 August 1944), “A STORY IS AN END IN ITSELF.… It is written as a man is born—an organic whole, dictated only by its own laws and its own necessity—an end in itself, not a means to an end” (Rand 1995, 157).

  But Rand realized that her fictional depiction of the truth of certain ideas was no substitute for fully articulated thought guiding efficacious social action. Since the artist creates and the responder experiences art in terms of sense of life, it is the sense of life that must be understood and, ultimately, influenced. Unlike the Russian Symbolists, Rand proposed a cultural revolution involving far more than just a Promethean aesthetic. Her cultural revolution would require philosophical articulation.

  THE FUNCTION OF PHILOSOPHY

  Much of this discussion has focused on the tacit dimensions of consciousness. For Rand, concept formation, emotions, sense of life, and even our habitual methods of thinking are based on subconscious integrations of which we are largely unaware. But such processes are not the only means by which the mind functions. Rand argued that there is an inescapable human need for philosophical articulation.

  In order to appreciate the full meaning of Rand’s theory, it is valuable to contrast her views with those of F. A. Hayek. Rand did not fully approve of Hayek’s works. She believed that Hayek was not a pure enough advocate of capitalism, and that his understanding of reason was much too limited.29 Given this antipathy toward Hayek’s works, it is regrettable that Rand did not take his contributions more seriously, because she would have found that Hayek was critical of a particular conception of reason, rather than of the rational faculty per se. In many ways, both Hayek and Rand exhibit a similar disdain for traditional rationalism. I explore these parallels later in this chapter.

  What needs to be discussed here is th
e distinction that Hayek and others have made between “knowing how” and “knowing that,” between tacit and articulate epistemological dimensions. This is a distinction that Rand never made in these formal terms, but which is apparent in many aspects of her thought. Appropriating these concepts from the works of Gilbert Ryle and Michael Polanyi, Hayek argued:

  Men may “know how” to act, and the manner of their action may be correctly described by an articulated rule, without their explicitly “knowing that” the rule is such and such. Of course, once particular articulations of rules of conduct have become accepted, they will be the chief means of transmitting such rules; and the development of articulated and unarticulated rules will constantly interact.30

  For Hayek, skills and habits, customs of thought and action are instances of our “knowing how” to do something without necessarily being aware of exactly what we are doing. Even as we articulate rules, we reduce and shift the tacit elements of our knowledge, but we can never entirely eliminate them. Polanyi ([1958] 1962) argued, for instance, that we may “remain ever unable to say all that we know” just as “we can never quite know what is implied in what we say” (56). Each of our statements may have an infinity of unspecifiable connotations (250).

  Both Hayek and Polanyi maintained that we do not know why certain customs or taboos exist, except that some of them seem to embody an un-articulated “wisdom of the ages.” Skills and crafts are passed on for generations without the craftspeople being able to articulate exactly what it is that they do. They may for instance, “know how” to use a tool, steer a boat, or play an instrument. But they may not be able to explain the actual creative process at work. They may not understand the physical or physiological principles involved in the continued reproduction of the skill. Should they come to recognize and articulate such principles, their very definition of the principles incorporates linguistic rules that guide their thought, though they have not explicitly formulated or articulated these rules either. As Hayek observed, “The ability of small children to use language in accordance with rules of grammar and idiom of which they are wholly unaware” is a striking instance of this phenomenon. As with language, so with moral values, “Man has more often learnt to do the right thing without comprehending why it was the right thing, and he is still more often served by custom than by understanding” (Hayek 1981, 157).

  Rand recognized that most people accepted rules of social conduct tacitly as if by cultural osmosis. But she rejected emphatically the claims of evolutionists like Hayek, who assessed the efficiency of moral codes by their relative ability to sustain the cultures that embraced them. Cultural longevity was an insufficient standard for evaluating the morality of a given rule of conduct.

  In addition, Rand acknowledged that there is a significant tacit dimension in concept formation, subconscious integration, emotional response, sense of life, and psycho-epistemology. She recognized that skills and creativity involve important tacit elements. But Rand hated the phrase “know how,” much as she rejected the view that human beings exhibit an “instinct of tool-making” that could not be fully comprehended (Peikoff 1990–91T, lecture 12).

  What must be understood is that Rand did not seek a synoptic identification of all that is tacit in the mind. It is true that every statement we utter carries with it certain implicit premises and conclusions of which we “may not necessarily be aware.” To grasp the consequences of that which is merely implicit in our statements requires “a special, separate act of consciousness” (“Appendix,” 159). Indeed, to understand the meaning of an emotion, the essence of our sense of life, and the actual methods by which we think, we must train ourselves in the art of knowing. To say what we mean and mean what we say is an epistemological achievement in which we become aware of the implications of our statements by the clarity of our own thinking (Peikoff 1980T, lecture 1).

  Like Habermas, Rand argued that a rational reconstruction is needed to render explicit the structure and elements of our “know-how.” This does not mean that someone playing the piano must simultaneously grasp the physiological processes that make this playing possible. The pianist need not be omniscient before performing a sonata. But there are many areas where self-understanding is desirable. An awareness of one’s own emotions, an appreciation of one’s own values, is as essential as technical proficiency to one’s creativity. The extent to which one automatizes and integrates this knowledge will deeply affect the efficacy of one’s actions. Rand would have agreed with Polanyi, who stressed that the context determines the appropriate level of focus. Thus, a pianist may be aware of playing the piano without being focally aware of the movement of each finger. Beginners must focus on each successive strike of a different piano key, but their ability to automatize these motions raises them to a higher level of proficiency. For the mature pianist, the fingering process is largely automatized. Polanyi ([1958] 1962) explains: “If a pianist shifts his attention from the piece he is playing to the observation of what he is doing with his fingers while playing it, he gets confused and may have to stop. This happens generally if we switch our focal attention to particulars of which we had previously been aware only in their subsidiary role” (56).

  Rand would not have disagreed with any of these observations. She recognized that consciousness is, by its nature, finite and limited. Indeed, as Peikoff (1991b, 125) suggests, no mind can hold in the “flash of a synoptic insight” all of the ideas and skills that are relevant to a particular task. And Branden ([1969] 1979) states further that no individual “can achieve exhaustive knowledge of the nature and laws of mental activity, merely by introspection” (9).

  But to state that human beings are not omniscient or that they cannot gain complete knowledge of their own minds through introspection is not to suggest that certain epistemic elements are fundamentally inexpressible. What Rand opposed in Hayek and Polanyi was their tendency to view skills, ideas, and morals as ineffable.31 Even though Hayek and Polanyi did not object to the post hoc attempt at a rational reconstruction of a tacit act, they believed, nevertheless, that there are certain epistemic components that cannot be articulated in principle.

  By contrast, Rand viewed the tacit components of knowledge as articulable in principle, even if these components had yet to be fully understood. Rand did not believe that it was a requirement of human survival to articulate every tacit practice.32 But for Rand, the articulation process was not only possible, but essential, especially in the realm of morality, because it enabled individuals not only to “do the right thing” but to know why it was the right thing to do. Philosophy, she maintained, holds the key to such articulation.

  To live, human beings must act efficaciously. To act, they must choose. To choose, they must define a code of values. To define values, they must know their own natures and the nature of the world around them. No one can escape from this need to act, choose, value, and know. Rand argued that for the individual the “only alternative is whether the philosophy guiding him is to be chosen by his mind or by chance.”33 The only alternative is whether to act on the basis of rational conviction and articulated understanding or on the basis of raw emotion and tacit sense of life. In Rand’s view, an articulated philosophy is a necessity for efficacious living. It is “the foundation of science, the organizer of man’s mind, the integrator of his knowledge, the programmer of his subconscious, the selector of his values.”34

  How could Rand make this statement when she had already acknowledged that most people are moved by tacit factors they have never fully grasped or articulated? If people begin by acting on subconsciously held metaphysical value-judgments, is the formation of explicit philosophical convictions nothing but an exercise in rationalizing the implicit? No. For Rand, articulation is not rationalization. Our core evaluations of ourselves, of others, and of the world may be wrong, but by not relying on the conclusions of our conscious minds, we are left at the mercy of inarticulate impulses that are largely the result of emotional and perceptual associations. Appropriate,
efficacious action is based on the integration of the conscious and the subconscious. It may require alterations in our subconscious premises or, alternatively, in the explicit philosophical principles we have accepted. As Rand put it:

  You have no choice about the necessity to integrate your observations, your experiences, your knowledge into abstract ideas, i.e., into principles.… A philosophic system is an integrated view of existence. As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation—or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind’s wings should have grown.35

  As people learn to define the fundamental principles of their actions, they begin to accept a philosophy by choice. Their conscious convictions program their subconscious minds, rather than being mere rationalizations for the values they have accepted tacitly. Those who are led by conscious thinking are more aware of their values and the premises of their emotions and are far more likely to lead integrated, efficacious, and empowering lives. This does not mean that every person must be an intellectual innovator. But it does mean that each individual must judge ideas critically and choose appropriately correct courses of action.36 The nature of the conceptual faculty is such that we are not equipped to survive without some kind of comprehensive view of our existence. Whatever the level of our intelligence, we need to integrate our knowledge, project our actions into the future, and weigh the consequences contextually.