Man as Self-Made, Free Will, and Ayn Rand as Parent: Another Look

Man as Self-Made, Free Will, and Ayn Rand as Parent:

Another Look

by Eric Paul Nolte

I recently expressed my wish that Ayn Rand had become a parent, because I surmise that had she reared children, this experience might have enriched her view of man as a being of self-made soul.

I expressed the opinion that we are not entirely beings of self-made soul, because we are clearly delivered into the time and place of our birth as if by a roll of the cosmic dice, which endows us with a wide range of traits that limit our horizon severely.  However it is also clear to those of us who have studied the matter from an Objectivist perspective that every normal human is endowed with the power to think or not, or turn one’s attention from one thing to another.  This power of choice, the freedom to think, is in fact the very power of free will.  

So we do have the power of free will by which to guide the unfolding of our gifts, such as they are, and this is the most crucial human trait.

I suspect Rand might have worried that by not affirming Homo sapiens as beings of entirely self-made soul, she would be opening herself to the charge that she was denying free will and affirming the view of man as a helpless pawn in a deterministic universe.

But as Rand herself points out, free will is an aspect of human nature, granted to us by the law of causality.  As she says, free will does not contradict the deterministic laws of science, it is the embodiment of a power granted to us by our nature.

Neither did I intend to suggest the ironic point that had Rand been a parent, she would have been forced to come to the conclusion at which I would have hoped to see her arrive.  I agree that it is not necessary to have personal experience of many things in order to arrive at a true understanding of those things.  

For example, one needn’t actually be a parent in order to know with certainty that the moment babies arrive on the planet they are already endowed with a fully formed temperament and a matching style of learning that is unlikely to change radically as a result of subsequent experience.  Neither must one have been a parent in order to know with certainty that some poor blighted soul, born into a cruelly oppressive culture and with an IQ of 70, will not likely enjoy the same power to fashion one’s own soul as that of a genius born into an auspicious time and place.  Nor should it be controversial that the range of human potential embodied by these two children does not mean that they lack free will.  By our nature as human beings, all of us are born with this, our most singular and fundamental trait, the power to choose to think, the power of rationality.  What I am asserting here is that human beings cannot enjoy the power to fashion ourselves without a wide range of genetic and environmental constraints on our potential.  

In short, to be a being of entirely self-made soul is not in the cards for Homo saps, but any normal person is endowed with the power to choose to think, and this makes all the difference in the world!

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I Wish Ayn Rand Had Been a Parent

I Wish Ayn Rand Had Been a Parent

by

Eric Paul Nolte

We just saw the Oscar award-winning film, “Still Alice.”

The story involves the tragically unusually early mental decline of a brilliant professor of linguistics at Columbia, due to Alzheimer’s disease.

A truly horrible premise!  I can’t think of a much worse fate, unless it is losing a child at a tender age.

Now Ayn Rand was insistent that man was a being of entirely self-made soul.  I think she must have held this belief because she herself lacked a certain worldliness, a certain experience of life that is available to a large population of others who had the opportunity to be parents.  

I wish Ayn Rand had had children… imagine her getting up at 03:00 every night for months or years in the service of her babies!  Ah, yes, we are entirely beings of self-made soul!  Right.

Imagine if she had had a husband or parent with… Zeus forgive the thought… Alzheimers… or… if she herself had come down with dementia, and had enjoyed the opportunity to reflect on the horror of this condition while still in command of her intellect.  Is dementia the result of a being who is truly of self-made soul?

What revision to her view of man as a being of self-made soul might she have made  if she had had the opportunity to reflect on the situation of some poor sub-Saharan African girl, born into a Muslim family, born with AIDS, born into a family where, if she survives these miserable circumstances long enough to reach puberty, she will enjoy the opportunity to experience an adolescent rite of passage in which her loving elders will slice off her clitoris in some horrible, unhygienic ceremony in which she stands a good chance of contracting an infection that will kill her?  To what degree does this poor, blighted soul, who, if typical of much of her demographic, does not have an IQ much above 70, stand of creating a life of meaning, purpose, and joy?  

If you say this poor girl is a being of self-made soul, I pronounce you an idiot, an ideologue, in mindless orbit to the, yes, otherwise brilliance of Ayn Rand.

Now, I credit Ayn Rand with offering me a set of values that essentially saved my life from a fate at least as bad as death.  But let us acknowledge that she did not have all the answers.  So far, nobody comes even close to Rand’s best answers, but let us affirm that we are still keeping our minds open and searching for ever better answers as we move forward in this on-going search for wisdom and happiness.

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