Ayn Rand: Philosophy - Who Needs It?

Ayn Randin tuotanto alkaa tämän kirjoituksen myötä olla luettuna ja yhteenvetoa lukuunottamatta käsiteltynä. Philosophy - Who Needs It on viimeisin kirja, jonka kanssa Rand työskenteli eläissään ja se koostuu useammasta novellista, jotka pääasiassa toimivat vastauksena joko jonkun esittämään kritiikkiin Randia kohtaan tai muuten kannanottoa johonkin yleisesti vallitsevaan näkemykseen. Tyyliltään se siis poikkeaa merkittävästi muista hänen teoksistaan, ennen kaikkea Atlas Shruggedista ja The Fountainheadista.

 

Ayn Rand: Philosophy- Who Needs It

Teoksena Philosophy - Who Needs It on keskinkertaista Randia, jos sitäkään. Siinä Rand asemoi oman objektivistisen filosofiansa suhteessa sekä klassisiin filosofeihin että aikansa yhteiskuntaan. Kollektiivinen ajattelu saa läpi kirjan kyytiä ja kapitalismille pyritään luomaan filosofinen viitekehys. Kirja ei saanut aikanaan kovinkaan hyvää vastaanottoa, eikä se kyllä merkkiteokseksi nousekaan, ainakaan suhteessa Randin tunnetumpiin teoksiin. Ehkä tekstiä hallitsee liikaa tarkoitus vastata muiden ajatuksiin oman ajattelun sijasta. Teoksen taustallahan on hänen USA:n Military Academyssa pitämänsä puhe.

 

Jos siis jossain kohtaa haluaa oikaista, niin tämän Randin voi hyvinkin jättää lukematta. Joitain hyviä sitaatteja, mutta kokonaisuutena jää varsin sekavaksi. Hienoa on huomata, Randin nostavan Ludwig von Misesin esille omana taloustieteen suosikkinaan. Näin tulee luoduksi yhteys itävaltalaisen koulukunnan ja randilaisyyden välillä, vaikka toki perustavaa laatua olevia eroavaisuuksia näiden ajattelusta löytyykin.

 

Poiminnot

• Tribalism is a product of fear, and fear is the dominant emotion of any person, culture or society that rejects man's power of survival: reason. (58)
• If you ask me to name the man most responsible for the present state of the world, the man whose influence has almost succeeded in destroying the achievements of the Renaissance - I will name Immanuel Kant. (87)
• Capitalism did not create poverty - it inherited it. Compared to the centuries of precapitalist starvation, the living conditions of the in the early years of capitalism were thefirst chance the poor had ever had to survive. (91)
• Capitalism and altruism cannot coexist in the same man or in the same society. Tell it to anyone who attempts to justify capitalism on the ground of the "public good" or the "general welfare" or "service to society" or the benefits it brings to the poor. All these things are true, but they are by-products, the secondary consequences of capitalism - not its goal, purpose or moral justification. The moral justification of capitalism is man's right to exist for his own sake, neiher sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; it is the recognition that man - every man - is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of the others, not a sacrificial animal serving anyone's need. (91)
• Philosophy is a necessity for a rational being: philosophy 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. To set philosophy against reason, i.e., against man's power of cognition, to turn philosophy into an apologist for and a protector of superstition - is such a crime against humanity that no modern atrocities can equal it; it is the cause of modern atrocities. (111)
• Concepts are the products of a mental process that integrates and organizes the evidence provided by man's senses. Man's senses are his only direct cognitive contact with reality and, therefore, his only source of information. Without sensory evidence, there can be no concepts; without concepts, there can be no language; without language, there can be no knowledge and no science. (121)
• In reality and in the Objectivist ethics, there is no such a thing as "duty". There is only choice and the full, clear recognition of a principle obscured by the notion of "duty": the Law of Causality. (133)
• Inflation is a man-made scourge, made possible by the fact that most men do not understand it. It is a crime committed on so large a scale that its size is its protection: the integrating capacity of the victims' minds breaks down before the magnitude - and the seeming complexity - of the crime, which permits it to be committed openly, in public. For centuries, inflation has been wrecking one country after another, yet men learn nothing, offer no resistance, and perish - not like animals driven to slaughter, but worse: like animals stampending in search of a butcher. If I told you that the precondition of inflation is psycho-epistemological - that inflation is hidden under perceptual illusions created by broken conceptual links - you would not understand me. (170)
• Money is the tool of men who have reached a high level of productivity and a long-range control over their lives. Money is not merely a tool of exchange: much more importantly, it is a tool of saving, which permits delayed consumption and buys time for future production. To fulfill this requirement, money has to be some material commodity which is imperishable, rare, homogenous, easily stored, not subject to wide fluctuations of value, and always in demand among those you trade with. This leads you to the decision to use gold as money. (172)
• There is only one institution that can arrogate to itself the power legally to trade by means of rubber checks: the government. And it is the only institution that can mortgage your future without your knowledge or consent: government securities (and paper money) are promissory notes on future tax receipts, i.e., on your future production. (174)
• If student minorities have succeeded in demanding that they be given courses on such subjects as Zen Buddhism, guerilla welfare, Swahili, and astrology, then an intellectual student minority can succeed in demanding courses on, for instance, Aristotle in philosophy, von Mises in economics, Montessori in education, Hugo in literature. At very least, such courses would save the student's mind; potentially, they would save the culture. (271)