THE REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF AYN RAND

"This form of argument, by no means as unusual as one might suppose, is based upon the assumption that one can never have too much of a good thing."
- St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles


It occurs to me that I committed an error in using a reductio ad absurdum in one of my previous attacks upon the so-called "philosophy of Ayn Rand", written in 2001.  I said:

The Objectivist philosophy can be boiled down to the following:
Man's existence depends upon his reason; therefore, "anti-reason" (i.e., anything "interfering with reason", any "initiation of the use of physical force", i.e., any regulation or law), is "anti-life"; therefore, all laws regulating morals offences, abortion or immigration are "anti-life".
Objectivists imagine that this is totally irrefutable, but in fact it is totally arbitrary: Note the pattern:
MAJOR PREMISE: Man's life depends on x;
MINOR PREMISE: All that which interferes with x is "anti-life";
CONCLUSION: Therefore, y (which "interferes with x") is "anti-life",
the "x" being whatever value you wish to supply. Of course it has to be something fairly plausible, or nobody will believe it. In reality, "Man's life" depends upon a great many things. One could just as easily say:
a) Man's existence depends on getting enough sleep; therefore, all that which interferes with sleep is "anti-life"; therefore, requiring me to report for work at 9:00 A.M. is "anti-life".
b) Man's life depends upon getting born; all that which interferes with getting born is "anti-life"; therefore, contraception and abortion are "anti-life".
c) Man's life depends upon procreation; all that which interferes with procreation is "anti-life"; same conclusion as above. 
d) Man's life depends upon defecation; all that which interferes with defecation is "anti-life"; therefore, people must be allowed to defecate anywhere they want (admittedly, this is a reductio ad absurdum)...

The reductio ad absurdum will not work on Objectivists. It might work in demonstrating the absurdity of the Objectivist philosophy to other people, but it will never have the slightest effect on the Objectivists themselves, because they have no sense of proportion.

The hardest thing to imagine -- or believe -- about the Objectivists is that they MEAN WHAT THEY SAY.

They never joke. They never exaggerate. They have no sense of humour, no sense of sanity (if there is such a thing). Thus, for example, if 25 immigrants are good, then x-trillion-zillion-jillion-kajillion immigrants times "n" to the "nth power" will be even better.  Much better!

They will never admit that there is any point at which any principle ceases to apply simply because of the circumstances or numbers involved. They will never admit that there is any point at which it becomes possible to have too much of a good thing.     

For example, here is the entire text -- I repeat, the entire text -- of a post on an Internet discussion group by my late brother,  Tom S. Porter, author of a dead dog of a book called Ayn Rand's Theory of Knowledge (may it rest in peace):

"Every time you lower a price, whether the price of a commodity or the price of an immigrant" -- he actually said this: THE PRICE OF AN IMMIGRANT -- "everybody benefits" (emphasis added).  

Period.  End of discussion. It wasn't even an Objectivist discussion group. It was a "Libertarian" discussion group (another good reason never to trust Libertarians).

Let me repeat this:

"Every time you lower a price, whether the price of a commodity or the price of an immigrant, everybody benefits".

As I say -- I know it's incredible -- the Objectivists MEAN WHAT THEY SAY.

This means that there will be NO EXCEPTIONS. "Everybody" means "everybody", always,  not just some people, or most people, sometimes or usually. It means that EVERYBODY WILL BENEFIT, EVERY SINGLE TIME, ALWAYS, TO INFINITY.

It means that if Sheldon Adelsohn or the Koch brothers or some other "Libertarian" Jewish billionaire could import x- trillion-zillion-jillion-kajillion immigrants times "n" to the "nth power" for a tenth of a cent each, EVERYBODY WOULD BENEFIT, but that everyone would benefit even MORE -- presumably 10 times as much -- if it could be done for a tenth as much money!

It means that it would be against the laws of nature, contrary to the laws of the universe -- utterly impossible -- to find even ONE PERSON who would suffer in ANY WAY.

Don't forget, we're talking about my brother. I know how he thought. Let's say you asked him whether this was really what he meant. Is there really NO LIMIT to this process? Is it really IRRELEVANT how you lower the prices? (We haven't even discussed that yet.) Let's say you thought you had found even ONE person who suffered as a result. Do you know what his answer would be?

Well, first, you would be insulted; second, he would probably claim that you had just "admitted" to some shameful personal failing (this is the influence of  Freudianism on Ayn Rand, which we have not even discussed yet either), and third, he would probably claim that everyone really benefited ANYWAY, probably because we would all live in a society which was more efficient. The word "efficiency", of course, is never defined, but means, in practice,  simply lower prices.

Insults, extreme statements, Freudian-style mind-reading and circular arguments are the standard methodology of argument of all Objectivists.  The obvious untruthfulness of most of what they say doesn't bother them in the least.

--
Extra Feature:
--
More Wit and Wisdom from the inspired pen of Tom S. Porter

(note that in this example, the insults come first).


(This is another example, from another discussion group. The moderator's comment was, "Immigration Today, Immigration Tomorrow, Immigration Forever": 
"Illegal immigrants are hated because they are poor, because they work too hard, and because they're illegal.
"Americans have always secretly hated those poorer than ourselves. We want richer people to pay for our children's education; we don't want to pay for poorer people's children. We want to live and shop among the rich; we seize and destroy poor people's homes and businesses ('blight'). As the former denizens of low-rent districts become homeless, they lose their humanity and become stray dogs.
"Illegal immigrants do take jobs Americans won't do, but that's only part of the picture. They take jobs because they wll work harder than Americans. Our affluent laziness becomes resentment, then spite, and finally hatred.
"Immigrants are illegal in the sense that someone lost in a blizzard who breaks into an unoccupied cabin to save his life is illegal. He doesn't hurt anyone, he pays for the damage, and his illegality is forgiven. He had no choice and no criminal intent.
"The cure for their illegality is obvious and easy: Make them legal. These people have taken great risks and endured great hardships to become Americans, in fact if not in name.
Ayn Rand said it best: 'What did you do to become an American, just get born?'

Tom Porter"
--
THIS is "reason"?
THIS is "rational self-interest"?
THIS is "objectivity"?
THIS is "perception of reality"?
THIS is "Americanism"?
THIS is "anti-Communism?"

Whew, is that a load off my mind! For a moment I thought it sounded like "altruism" and "self-sacrifice", or something written by some pot-smoking hippie commie pinko lunatic hell-bent on detroying America!
But it's all from Ayn Rand, so it's ipso facto "rational", par excellence!
The fact that it is all UNTRUE is simply irrelevant.
The strange thing is that he spent practically his entire life in Los Angeles county, so he witnessed the destruction of the country by immigrants close-up, first hand; he obviously relished it.
He hated the middle-class; he wanted to destroy middle-class values; how does this differ from the New Left?
--

Nathaniel Branden was once asked "What will happen to the poor in an Objectivist society?"
His answer was, "If you wish to help them, you will not be stopped."
But on immigration, it's a whole different story.

QUESTION:
Since the Objectivist position on immigration contradicts virtually everything else in the so-called "philosophy", their fanaticism on this one point tells me that this is one of the very few things they ever really cared about, and that everything else is a con.
--
Indeed, if the whole "philosophy" had been a con from start to finish, intended to destroy America and accomplish virtually nothing else (except profit-mongering on a huge scale for a few Jews), then in what way would the philosophy have had to be any different?

--

(music)

I am the very model of the rational Objectivist
Arrogant, obnoxious, full of insults and invective-ist
A form of mental illness both contagious and infective-ist
But absolutely rational, not mystic or collectivist.
--

Now, let's analyse this same statement (or both of them) from a different point of view, as an ideological or philosophical statement disguised as a statement of fact.

(To be continued, in nother article)

Recommended reading:
ADIOS, AMERICA by Ann Coulter
STATE OF EMERGENCY by Pat Buchanan
THE DEATH OF THE WEST by Pat Buchanan
ALIEN NATION by Peter Brimelow
THE DIVERSITY ILLUSION: What We Got Wrong About Immigration and How to Set It Right by Ed West
THE LIBERAL DELUSION: by John Marsh
BRITAIN'S GREAT IMMIGRATION DISASTER by Gavin Cooke
CULTURAL SUICIDE by Thomas Paine
FREEDOM AND REALITY by Enoch Powell (contains the original "Rivers of Blood" speech, which does not contain the words "Rivers of Blood": the words were simply a media invention -- i.e., just another lie)
RIVERS OF BLOOD: Why Enoch Powell Was Right by Saxonshieldwall (of course, Powell was right, but, please, he never used the words "Rivers of Blood", thank you very much)
DARK ALBION: A Requiem for the English by David Abbott

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