Joy and Suffering

I have known both joy and suffering, but perhaps no more than most. In my early years, my parents divorced and my life was torn apart. As an adolescent, I survived cancer through radiation therapy, and a related brain tumor as an adult. I have known the joys of family, marriage, fatherhood, several opportunities to apply my mind to challenging careers. All of these have been enriched through my relationship with Jesus Christ. Ayn Rand characterizes the philosophy of her detractors, the looters, as a philosophy of suffering and doom. Any worldview that places an arbitrary entity (an entity other than the self) above the self, is quenching/inhibiting the joy of the individual. It must be. But Ayn Rand doesn't consider ALL of the ways that joy comes to individuals. The premise of John Piper's book, Desiring God, is that God is the ultimate fulfillment of our longing for joy. He puts that longing in our heart, and leads us to the only stream that flows with living water: Himself. The prayer of Augustine reflects that longing: "Lord, our hearts are restless until we find our rest in Thee."

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dr. Robert Stadler

I know it's not exactly news, but I haven't seen it quite so explicit. The headline in an internet newspaper called The Huffington Post blurted it out. Dr. Robert Stadler is a once-moral man, who clearly knew better. Stadler, a famous and brilliant physicist and mentor of Ayn Rand’s greatest hero, John Galt, sells his soul to the state. Stadler’s guilt and breach of morality are unforgivable because he deliberately abandoned reason, despite his virtue and intelligence. Does this sound like Alan Greenspan? In this short post, I've undoubtedly over-simplified the character of Stadler. Please help me embellish the description. Likewise, I'm interested in your thoughts.

Thinking, More or Less

Often, when life has gone awry and circumstances beyond my control create pain and suffering and fear, I have dealt with the circumstances by denying them: denying their importance, seriousness, or magnitude. When I underwent radiation treatments for lymphoma, I frequently became nauseous. I lost weight and I lost my hair. As all of this began to unfold, I denied the seriousness of it by making light of my circumstances. I "laughed through the pain", as it were, by minimizing it, sometimes to the frustration of those closest to me. I would not consider this approach a "thinking" one. When troubles come, there are at least two ways to deal with it. One way to get peace is to stop thinking about the source of the trouble. Some people apply this approach (similar to "denial") by drinking. It even works for a time. For example, you're in enemy territory and you hear that the 5,000 enemy troops are within two miles of your location. They're coming toward you. You have no way to defend yourself, and you start to worry. To relax, you turn to the bottle. After a while, you start to forget about your problems. It works, but there is another way. Instead of trying to forget the source of your troubles, you do some reconnaissance. It takes some effort, but you discover that 25,000 of your own troops are within one mile of you! They're set to drive the enemy troops away, and take back the territory. By focusing on reality, looking broader and beyond the scope of your current perspective, you are able to have peace. Many years after my struggle with lymphoma, I was diagnosed with a benign tumor in my brain, at the base of my brain stem. This time around, the stakes were higher and my approach was different. Instead of denying the reality of the seriousness of the tumor, I engaged with it. And not just the tumor, but the reality beyond the tumor. Not just the physical and emotional realities, but the spiritual realities as well. Meditation, in some religious practices, is thinking less: emptying your mind of all thoughts and achieving an openness from within. But in Christianity, meditation involves thinking on a far deeper level. The Bible is replete with examples. My favorite is Psalm 103, but that will have to wait until next time. As always, I appreciate your comments.

Money and Evil

I came across a blog posting this week entitled, "Money and Evil in the Bible and Atlas Shrugged". The title was provocative, and the content was worthy of some discussion.

I re-read Francisco d'Anconia's money speak from Atlas Shrugged last night. I've been thinking about it a lot in light of Christian denunciations of "the love of money," which is either "the root of all evil" or "a root of all kinds of evil" depending on your particular translation. I think that, unfortunately, a lot of Christian views of money are held over from societies in which expropriation and redistribution rather than production and exchange were the routes to wealth. Indeed, here's 1 Timothy 6:9-10 (KJV), which suggests that the desire to get money leads people to commit all sorts of evil deeds: But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. If you who are familiar with Atlas Shrugged, that sounds a lot more like a condemnation of Orren Boyle, Jim Taggart, and their ilk than Hank Rearden or Francisco d'Anconia. I think the out-of-context "money=evil" meme is a holdover from a world of illiteracy, venality, and corruption in which the kings and priests could exploit the credulity of the unwashed masses for personal gain (anyone wanna buy an indulgence?). What I say here is tentative rather than authoritative, to say the least... Choice passages from d'Anconia's money speech are below the fold; at first they seem to run counter to Christian teachings about money, but I think they can be reconciled.

The blogger goes on to share Francisco's "Money Speech", in which he highlights "money as representing the value that can be created through the rational mind of an individual." The real question is where money falls in your hierarchy of worship. Money is good. If money is an "ultimate good" as opposed to an ordinary good, it leads to problems. My net worth is not denominated in money. If I could only receive life with peace and happiness when my bank account is full, I would be miserable. Likewise, if I judge my value as an individual by my ability to produce, and my ability to produce is measured by the amount of money I have amassed, I'm in trouble. I'm going to be valuable when my business is going well, and worthless when it's not. That's a breeding ground for massive insecurity. Instead, I'm looking to Jesus and what he says about me. The gospel says that I am more poverty-stricken than I ever dared believe, but in Jesus Christ, I am more valuable than I ever dared hope. Money is important. Just not the ultimate source of my peace and happiness. As always, I look forward to reading about your best thoughts.

Did ARI get it wrong?

If they did, it's a common mistake. Could happen to anyone. But of all people, I thought the smart team of enthusiasts at the Ayn Rand Institute would know better. Deep in their web site is a link to Ayn Rand's speech to the West Point graduating class of 1974. It's a great speech. It will be familiar to many Rand-readers because it has formed the foundation of her book Philosophy: Who Needs It. Notice that I did NOT include a question mark at the end of the title of her book. That's because there is no question mark in the title of her book. It's not a question, it's a statement. The statement is, simply, that everyone needs philosophy. Like so many things, I guess it just requires a second reading.

I wonder if it just takes a second reading...

Again, Atlas Shrugged shows up as something of a rallying point for politically concerned and, perhaps, frustrated citizens. I pasted an excerpt from an article in US News and World Report, talking about the phenomenon of Ayn Rand.

One of the strangest—but perhaps, predictable—trends that has accompanied the recession is a resurgence of interest in the writings of Ayn Rand and especially, the book Atlas Shrugged. Sales of the book have apparently soared over the last year. The book's hero, John Galt, has become a rallying figure for anti-big-government activists. You might have seen the latest appropriation of Randian thought in your newspaper: one of the ads used by the Employment Policies Institute (started by famous lobbyist Rick Berman) as part of a new campaign called Defeat The Debt. Check out the ad here.

Still, there are critics. But there's a lot of over-simplification and caraciture-creation going on. Those who try to minimize Ayn Rand's message say that Atlas Shrugged is just "pro-big business propaganda" as if Orren Boyle and Jim Taggart weren't prominent characters in the novel. Others say that Rand's characters are uni-dimensional and "perfect" as if the mistakes of Hank Rearden and Dagny Taggart aren't a huge part of the story-line. I wonder if it just takes a second reading.

Liberal or Conservative?

How closely do you link Ayn Rand to the conservative icons that the New York Times despises so much? I am seeing her quoted so often both on the air and in the critics' responses. Frank Rich in yesterday's op-ed said this:

Beck has notoriously defamed Obama as a “racist,” but the race card is just one in his deck. His ideology, if it can be called that, mixes idolatrous Ayn Rand libertarianism with bumper-sticker slogans about “freedom,” self-help homilies and lunatic conspiracy theories. (He fanned Internet rumors that FEMA was establishing concentration camps before tardily beating a retreat.) It’s the same crazy-quilt cosmology that could be found in last weekend’s Washington protest, where the marchers variously called Obama a fascist, a communist and a socialist, likening him to Hitler, Stalin, Castro and Pol Pot. They may not know that some of these libels are mutually exclusive. But what they do know is that they need a scapegoat for what ails them, and there is no one handier than a liberal, all-powerful president (who just happens to be black).

Beck is not alone. O'Reilly, Limbaugh, and others are with him. I'm not sure if I'd call them "fans" of Ayn Rand, but they do quote her quite often to make a positive point. On the other hand, I've heard Leonard Peikoff say something to the effect that "no self-respecting Objectivist could vote Republican." Where does Rand fall in the spectrum of today's liberal and conservative? As always, I appreciate your best thoughts.

Missing links?

If you're missing any of the links that I refer to in any of the "Soul of Atlas" posts, please visit http://www.SoulOfAtlas.com to follow the link and/or post me a comment.

Smallest Minority in the World

I sent a clip of the Rush Limbaugh Show (in which he quotes Ayn Rand with the quote above) to an Objectivist I know and love. Not that Rush agrees with Rand on everything, of course. He knows Rand is an atheist but accepts her premise in the fight to gain back the soul of the individual. I talked to one Objectivist who said this about the ongoing political struggle:

The only salvation for the Republican Party is to align with the conservative democrats - which means that to defeat the far left wing (those who would make us slaves) - Republicans are going to have to concentrate on the message that individualism and liberty are the causes we have to fight for. This means that the far right social issues (abortion, gay rights, etc) will have to be jettisoned in the interest of liberty. Just as the founding fathers accepted slavery temporarily to form the United States. Doesn't mean you give up your belief in them - but you don't make them part of your political platform.

There is a sense of needing to cooperate, even though there is disagreement between the person of faith and the atheist, both of whose economic and political convictions are influenced by a deep-seated morality. As always, I'm interested in your thoughts.

One of these things just doesn't belong here...

An interesting editorial entitled Where Politics Don't Belong, and in the New York Times! An "Ayn Rand" alert brought me to an article that begins like this:

FOR years now, many businesses and individuals in the United States have been relying on the power of government, rather than competition in the marketplace, to increase their wealth. This is politicization of the economy. It made the financial crisis much worse, and the trend is accelerating.

The author, a George Mason University professor of economics, goes on to point out that dealmaking and favoritism will lead to economic chaos and health care is about to follow the bad example set in the financial crisis.

When major economic sectors can be influenced [by favoritism and dealmaking], are we really very far from the nightmare depicted by Ayn Rand in “Atlas Shrugged”?

He falls short of the mark, though. While favoritism and dealmaking may compromise the integrity of competition, it's government intervention and regulation that hurts the most. To borrow from Sesame Street, the real answer is to what doesn't belong in health care or the economy is Government.

Life Thinking

In a previous discussion, we concluded that thinking is the opposite of going through life without asking questions. Ayn Rand's description of not thinking is "not using our mind to reason, to survive, to create for ourselves what we need to thrive." It follows that "true Objectivists" doesn't take any of Rand's conclusions at face value. They wrestle through, think through, each one. They ask questions about the derivation and application of Rand's conclusions. It's not enough to "think right." Ultimately, we want to live right. That requires living in accordance with right thinking. The idea of "right thinking leading to right living" turns out to be a life theme for me.