Phil Donahue' 2 Interviews of Rand

This looks like a question of semantics. The word “perfect” is being stretched to fit so many situations that it is becoming ambiguous. At least two different “perfects” seem to exist within this conversation; there is perfection as a result, and perfection in action.

My opinion is that just as a finished ashtray is perfect because it serves its purpose, any proper action taken in order to produce this ashtray is perfect as well. Until that ashtray is completed, it cannot be perfect, but every step taken to its completion is perfect. Similarly, a life that is still in progress cannot be perfect, but every action we take that is consistent with our values/ethics etc. can, in fact, be perfect.

But at this point, another “perfect” comes into play. If the action we take is perfectly consistent with our values but its result is not quite what we intended it to be, is the action no longer a perfect one? Does the end judge the act, or can they be valued in two distinct ways – as two different “perfects”?

Tania

Post 21

Tuesday, October 4, 2005 - 8:15pm

Perfect, perfect, perfect. I don't think I used that word enough in my post.
Perfect.

Post 22

Tuesday, October 4, 2005 - 8:25pm

Look in the dictionary for the completion theory. Being true to the word.

Post 23

Tuesday, October 4, 2005 - 8:33pm

Joe,

What do you mean?
I've got: Completion (n.) The act of completing or the state of being completed.

I was using the word as the latter meaning.

Post 24

Tuesday, October 4, 2005 - 8:47pm

Too many people take second best, but I won't take anything less, it's got to be, yeah, perfect...

Not finished, but completed, Rick.

My bad. You're quite right, and we talked about that at school too. Jump the gun I did.

I take perfection to mean not so much as flawlessness

Well when you stop falling flat on your face and buggering things up and finding disagreements I think that's when you stop being flawless. Screw-ups are not a flaw, they're the whole ball game.

The way kids learn to walk is the perfect way to learn to walk. A controversial statement but I think on reflection anyone would come to agree with me.

Post 25

Tuesday, October 4, 2005 - 9:12pm

Tania, sorry, I meant the definition of perfect, not completion.

Post 26

Tuesday, October 4, 2005 - 11:31pm

Ayn Rand thought John Galt was perfect.

--Brant

Post 27

Tuesday, October 4, 2005 - 11:35pm

SOLO is now perfect. Leave it alone. The eons have been at work on it and man can only mar it.

--Brant

Post 28

Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - 5:56am

If one takes an action consistant with one's values, yet the results is not quite as expected, perhaps it is not so much an indication of any imperfection as it is an indication of the variables of the complexity of reality - the world, after all, is far more complex, tho integrated within itself to be consistant, than is usually realized, and thus there are bound to be many instances of tangents following appropriate actions... it is in dealing with these tangental consequences, staying within those values given oneself, that the perfection, as it were, sustains...

Post 29

Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - 7:28am

Tania,

Congratulations on a fine observation. It is a question of semantics - which is called hairsplitting around here sometimes. That is why defining your terms is so important.

Casey,

There is a subtle little thing in your "reject Plato" argument that I profoundly disagree with. Ayn Rand stated flat out that she did not use the standard of measurement by distance from perfection in her own thinking about morality. Which part of that is hard to understand? I have yet to read in her writings that she actually agreed with this view, but to simplify conversation, she played with words. In what part was her statement ambiguous enough so that it had to be "interpreted" - meaning she actually meant the contrary but she couldn't say it, so she came up with a different word?

That sounds a lot like Christians who state that the Bible is to be interpreted and cannot be taken literally.

I would like to remind you that Ayn Rand was extremely clear regarding the construction of her concepts, which are always rooted in the five senses, not just the words. If she stated that "perfection" applied to morality was not applicable, I doubt very seriously that she meant that the concept of perfection actually is applicable, except you have to call it something else because only the word "perfect" is inapplicable.

Her approach was "command to rise," not "look down from above." Where she was rising to had no ceiling - perfect or otherwise. Integrity is not a disguised form of the concept "perfect," as you imply. Integrity is a process, a principle to guide actions. One adopts integrity because it aligns with reality and for no other reason. A "state of integrity" is neither a goal nor a reality. I submit that this kind of thinking makes it a Platonic construct and completely distorts what Objectivism is all about.

btw - I can't resist an observation. Ayn Rand's "command to rise" perspective (both for herself and for others) is one of the strongest themes running throughout The Passion of Ayn Rand by Barbara Branden. Nobody ever talks about it, since something like that does not serve the present acrimonious agendas, but all you have to do is look and you can't help but see it. It's all over the place.

Michael

Post 30

Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - 8:11am

What in Gawd's name are you blathering about, Michael?

Jeesh!

Give me a clue, please, and I'll answer.

Post 31

Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - 8:19am

Casey,

I'm pretty sure that you would not understand and don't even want to.

Michael

Post 32

Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - 8:22am

Casey,

I think there's more to the perfection issue than Rand's admirable comments on the Donahue show would indicate.

I believe the "perfection" issue has roots in Platonism and continues through religion that holds perfection above this earth or any of its inhabitants.

I agree with you about the Platonic and religious aspects, of course. And about Objectivism's essential rejection of them.

But Rand used the phrase "moral perfection," prominently, affirmatively, in print. See the passage on pride in "The Objectivist Ethics." (I don't have the book in front of me, or I'd give you the page number.)

The phrase "moral perfection" does not appear in the "About the Author" postscript to Atlas Shrugged. But if Rand is not asserting her equivalence in character to Howard Roark and John Galt, I'd like to know what you think she is actually saying there.

Oddly, I've found that anti-Randroiders use this term against Rand's admirers, and they claim that anyone who defends her is somehow claiming she was "perfect" which automatically means something that is impossible to any human being.

Sorry, but some of the ARI-affiliated endorse "the moral perfection of Ayn Rand," and others who have not signed on the dotted line still regard it as a proposition to be taken with the utmost seriousness. (I would not have believed that even the utmost zealot would use such a phrase, had I not seen it on a blog.)

Now Jim Valliant explicitly does not put Rand forward as morally perfect in his book. I take his (and your) statements about that to be sincere. But don't you suppose that most ARI-affiliated readers will blow right past the few passages where the matter comes up, and assimilate the book to their pre-existing scheme about Rand?

Thus, anyone who defends Rand's integrity is called a Randroid who worships an impossible goddess of moral "perfection." Of course, this otherworldy definition that has been built-in to the word "perfection" renders it useless here on earth and even holds the earth and all of its inhabitants up to a diaphanous standard that cannot be measured up to by definition.

Valliant's book does a lot of things. One thing it doesn't do a very good job of is explain why Rand kept her affair with Nathaniel Branden secret. (Secret even from Leonard Peikoff, who must have wondered, when it finally came to light, whether Rand considered him the equivalent of Eddie Willers, Dagny and Francisco's friend whom they refused to clue in on their affair...) A consequent thing it doesn't do very well is explain why Rand demanded from her followers the kind of reaction to Nathaniel and Barbara Branden that would have made sense to many of them had they known about the affair--without cluing any of them in on it. I do not believe that the demands that Rand placed on her followers after her break with the Brandens were consistent with the highest standards of integrity. But I expect that's an issue for another thread.

Robert Campbell

PS. You might want to be careful using that word "diaphanous" around the ARI-affiliated. :-) It was used with some frequency to refer to the intrinsicist view of perception, in a nonbook called The Evidence of the Senses, written by an unperson named David Kelley. The book was an impeccable development of Randian and Peikovian views on perception, but none of that can rescue it now from the memory hole to which the Ayn Rand Institute has consigned it.

Post 33

Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - 8:51am

Robert,

I would love to read The Evidence of the Senses, but there is a problem with TOC shipping. Kat bought me this as a present on the 16th of last month (including a few other Kelley books), but it still has not been shipped (she just checked). Unfortunately, I have to get my hands on this book physically in order to read it. They got it and I want it. They won't give it up, even after they got the money for it.

As long as I am on this subject, let me rant about Free Radical. A subscription was purchased and the first copy received two months ago. I did not receive the following copy that came out last month. I would love to receive it since I had an article in it. I have contacted the proper people and repeated my address just in case a mistake was on file, but so far, nothing. They got it and I want it. They won't give it up, even after they got the money for it.

I also have the Objectivism CD from Amazon that was purchased, but it was sent to Cincinnati for some strange reason, floated out in "delivery land" for a couple of weeks and returned to Amazon. They got it and I want it. They sent it, but they don't deliver correctly.

From the looks of things, Objectivists are NOT good capitalists performance-wise. Even Amazon is getting on the poor customer service bandwagon for Objectivism-related products.

Michael

Post 34

Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - 9:02am

Robert,

Thanks for the intelligible counter to my actual statements.

I'm glad you appreciate the Platonic chauvinism inherent in the concept "perfection." It seems to be more apparent to some than others, I guess...

Now, on the other hand, I did say that I believe perfection, properly defined within the range of possibility on this Earth, is possible. And I also believe that Rand was morally perfect. Remember, there is a difference between errors in knowledge and conscious evil. Whereas I do not believe, after the exhaustive review of the evidence in Valliant's book, that Rand was consciously evil, I do believe that what she made could only be termed errors in knowledge, and I do believe the Brandens made consciously evil decisions about how to treat Rand over the four-and-a-half-years that they deceived her. Big difference there. NO moral equivalence is granted by me, there. This line is one I will hold until someone gives me convincing evidence otherwise. The evidence from the Brandens suggest the opposite, so far.

So Rand was morally perfect. Oh NO! I'm a RANDROID!?

NO: I merely believe that a good person who tries to access all knowledge available to make the moral decision that does not sacrifice one's self to others or others to oneself can be held to be morally perfect in that effort even when deceived into making the wrong choices. Yeah, it's not a Platonic vision with no complications to negotiate or consider, but it's a real and workable and attainable goal on planet Earth, and Rand achieved that, absolutely, and all of us should strive to achieve it!! What I hate most of all about this moral imperfection idea is that it seems to be saying that it's OK to FUCK PEOPLE OVER on occasion, even when its unjustified, even when we know we are making a fool out of someone, because moral perfection is impossible anyway! BULLSHIT, I submit. My friends, we are capable of this kind of moral perfection, and Rand practiced it as absolutely as she wrote about it, make no mistake because of the ugly behavior of the Brandens and THEIR need to see moral equivalency.

Robert, with all due respect, I think you still have a prejudice about the idea that "perfection" can be non-Platonic and fully compatible with human achievement, with all its identity and lack of omniscience. I don't think Rand had a problem with this -- I think she understood the word "perfect" to be as loaded with the wrong philosophical premises as the word "selfish" was. But I also think that the only way she would use that term was to refer to something real, and possible, thus rejecting the Platonic dichotomy at its heart. I know you agree with that.

Casey

(Edited by Casey Fahy on 10/05, 9:06am)

(Edited by Casey Fahy on 10/05, 9:07am)

(Edited by Casey Fahy on 10/05, 9:35am)

Post 35

Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - 9:11am

Casey,

And I also believe that Rand was morally perfect.

I made a bet with myself that this would pop out in the next 4 or 5 posts of yours after the "reject Plato" thing.

//;-)

(I wanted to write "LOLOLOLOL," but that usually gets interpreted as being sarcastic in this kind of context, which it is not, but I am laughing because it is funny.)

Ayn Rand's word is not enough for those with an agenda and a need for a goddess...

She needs to be "interpreted" when the words don't quite add up to such agenda.

Michael

Post 36

Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - 9:11am

Robert,

One more thing: I would suggest that Valliant's book does a very good job of demonstrating Ayn Rand's own ideas about sharing with the public the existence of romantic relationships deemed not appropriate by traditional standards -- her books are replete with examples and statements about the very thing, and Valliant amply quotes these statements by Rand. What more do you think is needed, I might ask, since the statements he quotes address the issue so directly?

Post 37

Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - 9:15am

I invite SOLOists to read Michael's last response to me and the comments by me to which he was referring for a clinic in Objectivist vs. Conventional thinking. You decide which is for you. You can always vote by clicking that little red check-mark above the posts. ;)

Casey

Post 38

Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - 9:20am

Sorry, Casey.

You can't have the word "Objectivist" all to yourself and I certainly I am not "Conventional."

You can try to float it and see if it takes, though.

Michael

Edit - btw - I prefer to go by what Rand said and wrote for the basis of "Objectivist," anyway. Ain't that the party line?

(Edited by Michael Stuart Kelly on 10/05, 9:21am)

Post 39

Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - 12:32pm