“I stand by Ayn Rand. I reread some of her writing on and she is profound and truthful. It is pointless for me to try to convince anyone of this - she is hated as the Great Satan of Greed. But she only opposed the banal form of Christian pathos, of all - consuming (literally) equality. “
First of all: as you should. I mean we all gotta find our flow.
Secondly: it seems we find some common ground in that Marx is considered the great Satan of egalitarianism as well as the primary blame for the atrocities of both Stalin and Mao Tse Tong.
And finally: what we’re both probably dealing with is the misuse (much as happened with Nietzsche (of our respective heroes. As I like to say:
Ideology does nothing; people, however, do.
The problem for me, however, is that Rand seemed pretty clear on her assumption that the only way anyone could achieve “self valuing” was through Capitalism and clearly rejected Marxism (perhaps because of her reactionary sentiment towards having come from Stalinist Russia (as a means of people finding (to put it in Maslow’s terms: self actualization. Plus that, it became pretty clear to me in Atlas Shrugged II (the movie version (that anyone who attempted to pass policy that interfered with the workings of the market was basically a “looter”: much as Jews were “Rats” to the Nazis and Tutsie’s were “cockroaches” to the Hutus. And while it may well be impossible for me to ply you from your embrace of Rand, it would be equally difficult for you to convince me that there was not a fascist element in her use of the term. Or are you going to try to tell me that she didn’t actually use it in the book?
The interesting thing here, though, is the common ground between Rand and Marx. You and Iona argue, in the typical KTS fashion of the Neo-Nietzscheian gospel , that it is ultimately about people finding their higher selves. But let’s try a perfectly valid description of Karl Marx (one that Zizek actually fits:
A guy that found his higher self and was willing to sacrifice (live in poverty (to create a society in which everyone could find their higher selves as compared to submitting themselves to the role that producer/consumer Capitalism imposes on them. And while Marx may have suggested a final end (communism ( that was egalitarian in nature, it was merely an even playing field in which individuals could freely work towards their different levels of achievement. Now granted: Zizek may not have made quite the sacrifice that Marx did. But I would far rather see a man or woman (such as Zizek, Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, or Melanie Klein (get rich looking out for the little guy as compared the sociopathic approach of entitlement such as that of Gene Simmons, Jack Welch, or even Rand. The former just seem more heroic (in a very Nietzscheian sense (than the latter. This makes the following feel like petty nit-picking:
“Every so-called progressive or leftist or socialist type is basically just operating by a fake psychological mechanism of partial denial of self-valuing in order to gain some self-value in other ways, but none had the strength to truly live their philosophy of deliberate lack and rejection of excess. Leftist and communists who rise in social position or wealth always gather luxury and vanity around themselves. “
Now here’s the problem with this: no one is denying that the progressive or the leftist or the socialist is acting out of self interest. They (like Marx (are basically seeking a world that would accommodate people like them: the intellectually and creatively curious. The main difference is that they have moved to the next evolutionary step of the cooperative model in recognizing that looking out for the interest of others is, ultimately, in their interest (of putting their baser impulses in cooperation with their higher cognitive functions: that which the meat of the brain has evolved into (and moving beyond the competitive model which puts our higher cognitive functions in the service of our baser impulses: that, BTW, which leads to the really bad reasoning above - along w/ our possible extinction via producer/consumer Capitalism.
It is, as far as I’m concerned, the distinction between using intellectual pursuit as a way to make the world better (the cooperative model (and simply engaging in a pissing contest (the competitive model.