Rand’s Evolutionary Psychology

It’s about time I finished off my Randian piece from earlier.

I’ve finished reading “Atlas Shrugged” a few days ago. Actually I gave up about 300 pages from the end (of 1000), after Galt’s speech to his “troops” in their secret Utopian Atlantis, and could only bring myself to skim the rest including his speech to his “fellow Americans” across the public air-waves. 

I guess it’s a book of its times; hopelessly McArthyist and US-centric in its early 50’s outlook, and no surpise that Rand’s main message is about the good of the individual vs the bad of the collective. I really tried, but I could not discern any argument to support that, or any basis of what makes good other than progress in some sense. No Pirsigian would argue with that, but the whole basis just looked like alien straw-men to me. The whole first two thirds of the book, about the rise of self-made industrialists and then their demise under collective “bad government” is a great argument for the value of “freedom” and a case for needing “good” government, but absolutely no basis for defining either freedom or good, or concluding that any form of collective government is necessarily bad.

Those first two thirds are just so fictionally implausible, not to mention wretchedly written as Alice pointed out, that the final third set in that Utopia where entrepreneurs have withdrawn their services from society at large is just too naive to swallow. A germ of an interesting idea ruined by a dreadful book. I just could not suspend disbelief for 1000 pages.

OK, so why after that does Rand’s “objectivism” look just like evolutionary psychology too ? Let’s be honest here, even Pirsig was writing about society’s values going to the dogs in the 50’s – in our time. Chalk or cheese, it’s still the moon we’re looking at. The trouble is Rand ends where Pirsig started – and what is “good” Phaedrus.

Rand’s objectivism is summarised in her own words “My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason his only absolute.” The only clue as to why she sees this as “objectivism” is in the metaphysical foundation of reason. The real clues are in man, his, his, his ….

In fact she further summarises her philosophy as follows :

1. Metaphysics – objective reality
“Nature to be commanded must be obeyed”

2. Epistemology – reason
“You can’t eat your cake and have it too”

3. Ethics – self-interest
“Man is an end in himself”

4. Politics – capitalism
“Given me liberty or give me death”

The confusion here is the implied “man” – the species. She doesn’t say individual, but she does say me, me, me …. (Elsewhere it is clear she abhors any collective concepts.) Clearly she sees man as part of nature and mind as man’s defining tool. Although she doesn’t say it in so many words – she shares the Pirsigian view that the biological and social must not limit the intellectual.

Though logically irrelevant I can excuse her anthropocentric presumption of “man” as the pinnacle of reason (so far). Despite her abhorrence also of determinism – god given or otherwise- she ultimately fails to see that her “absolute” view of the existence of reason and mind places them outside the nature of creativity and progress she holds so dear in other aspects of reality.

Trapped in a psychology that doesn’t recognise its own evolution.
Phew ! May I never have to suffer reading her words again.

[Post note : to follow-up – man’s aim, happiness. Mill, utilitarianism, Heylighen.]

God’s Country ?

Times are a’changin’, but there is a generalised perception of Americans as somehow ignorant of of global ecological issues, and politically / geographically insular where their direct energy resource interests are not involved. Generally speaking I’m more interested in the perception than the presumption that it might in fact be true or worse still, some “evil conspiracy”.

I’ve seen a fair bit of the globe in my time, spoiled and unspoiled, and having been resident in the US for 4 months now, we’ve travelled a fair bit of this country too. A thought keeps striking me, as we explore rural backwaters, that might give some sense as to why its citizens could easily be blind-sided (media aside) to the world as one interdependent socio-eco-system.

The place is big, with plenty of space (kinda obvious, but not actually all that big considering the distances that can be travelled easily on freeways in a day … don’t talk to me about air-travel). The point is that space, however big it is, is teeming with (a) life, and (b) diversity, and what’s more despite the manicured beautification of sub-urban living, and disneyfication of park attractions, there seems little “respect” for spoiling it. Even the most remote (but road accessible trail-head) trails host discarded food and drink containers at regular intervals.

The quantity and variety of the natural world here constantly amazes me, grasses, flowers, trees, spiders, butterflies, insects and invertebrates of all sizes, birds, snakes, and countless other reptiles and amphibians, before we even get to the larger mammals, and how could I forget the fish. Man’s presence is evident, but any negative impact on the eco-system is hard to imagine. You could easily imagine the garden of eden lives on.

Talking of Muse

The Positively Pirsig post below referred to an upcoming book by David A Granger of SUNY. David Harding posted a link on MoQ-Discuss to a David Granger paper on Dewey and Pirsig published on the scholarly journal site “Project Muse”.

Turns out to be an excellent paper. Right to the point about Pirsig’s indirect teaching approach to Quality in his Bozeman days being a real example of Dewey’s later ideas on aesthetics leading science. Shared the link with Friends of Wisdom too.

Art, [Dewey] tells us, is best seen more liberally as “a quality that permeates an experience,” whereby, in any number of life contexts, the meanings of objects and events become “the matter of a clarified, coherent, and intensified or ‘impassioned’ experience” …

Modern preoccupation with science and with industry based on science has been disastrous; our education has followed the model that they have set. It has been concerned with intellectual analysis and formularized information …

It is disastrous because it has fixed attention upon competition for control and possession of a fixed environment rather than upon what art can do to create an environment …

It is disastrous because civilization built upon these principles cannot supply the demand of the soul for joy, or freshness of experience; only attention through art to the vivid but transient values of things can effect such refreshment.

Very promising stuff. Look out the re-release publicity for Pirsig’s “Lila”, and the later publication of the Granger book.

Muse in Atlanta

Saw Muse on Sunday night at the Tabernacle in Atlanta. (Was due to see them last weekend in Chicago too, but Tornado weather meant our 500 mile flight to O’Hare was delayed, cancelled, re-routed and re-scheduled via Dallas and Des Moines took 32 hours and an overnight stoppover, so I missed the gig.)

Their Atlanta set was

Take a Bow
Hysteria
Supermassive Black Hole
Butterfies and Hurricanes
Starlight
Forced In (?)
Bliss
Feeling Good
Soldier’s Poem
Invincible
Plug In Baby
New Born
Stockholm Syndrome
____________________
Map of the Problematique
Time Is Running Out
Knights of Cydonia

Significantly different from the Chicago playlist. Great final six, all anthemic for maximum audience participation with projected chorus lyrics for Cydonia. Not my favourite of the new numbers, but it worked. The highlight had to be Map and TIRO. Map is firmly my current favourite, can’t stop hitting the repeat button, particularly as the next number on the CD is the low key Soldier’s Poem.

Sound not too good, plenty loud and plenty of gut-curdling sub-bass, but the lead guitar and synth / keyboard voices and vocals too indistinct in the mix. Pretty static audience until the final six. Another excellent performance though.

Game Theory

Even the simplest games have strategy, but they are nevertheless psychological, about guessing the level of your opponents imperfect knowledge of the strategy. Via the BBC’s 100 Things page [via Rivets]

Aha, and here is the Scoville Chilli Scale. Didn’t that story originally indicate the hottest natural Chilli’s were grown on a farm in the UK ?

Positively Pirsig

Ant tipped us off that Robert Pirsig had been interviewed for The Times to coincide with the re-release of Lila in the UK, and the upcoming publication of David Granger’s book “Dewey, Pirsig and the Art of Living“. Here is the Times Online article by John Freeman.

Excellent optimistic interview “”I think this philosophy could address a lot of the problems we have in the world today” he says, leaning forward, tapping the pad of paper. “Just so long as people know about it.” Says Bob.

(Lots of the biographical summary looks straight from my pages, and in fact Bob confirms John Freeman did his homework using the timeline.)

(I think I blogged this earlier review of 60’s & 70’s that mentions ZMM, Bob’s first book.)

Let’s Roll

A riveting read, the recordings and transcripts from the Norad Tapes (North-East US Air Defence) during the 9/11 attacks, annotated by Michael Bronner producer of the movie “United 93”.

Truth is so much better than fiction or spin in this case. Should leave conspiracy-theorists with little doubt about cock-up-realities. Restores your faith in humanity, all except Cheney’s “dark bravado” that is. BTW where is he right now ? 

Vanity Fair via Robot Wisdom