February 26, 2024 • 51 mins
This episode has us talking with returning guest, Aaron Smith of the Ayn Rand Institute. Today's topic is Stoicism's "Worst Idea." Join us for a lively discussion.
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Show notes with links to articles, blog posts, products and services:
- One of Stoicism’s Worst Ideas
- Interview with Aaron Smith (episode 8, The Secular Foxhole podcast)
- Stoic Wisdom: Ancient Lessons for Modern Resilience by Nancy Sherman
- Ryan Holiday
- Epictetus
- Arrian
- Oikeiôsis
- Marcus Aurelius
- Psychological egoism
- The Virtue of Selfishness
- Atlas Shrugged
- Newsletters by Ayn Rand
- Donald Robertson
- The “Conflicts” of Men’s Interests
- Boostagram
- Streaming Satoshis
- TrueFans.fm
- The Secular Foxhole on TrueFans
- Donald J. Robertson on Twitter (X)
- "You didn't build that"
- This is Ayn Rand Speaking
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Blair (00:08):
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to another episode of the secular
Foxhole podcast.
Today we have a special guest.
Aaron Smith is with us from the AindrandInstitute.
Aaron is a fellow at the institute where helectures and develops educational content for
the institute's intellectual training andoutreach programs.
(00:32):
He's also a member of the Einran Universityfaculty.
How is that university going, Aaron?
Aaron (00:37):
Oh, it's going very this.
The Aynran University is an educational
product or program, if you want to call itthat, that the institute offers where you can
study Einran's philosophy, objectivism, withthe experts at ARI.
So all of the faculty are phds in philosophyand also experts in Rand's philosophy in
(01:00):
particular.
So we have numerous courses that people can
take live.
So you log on live via Zoom.
There's a whole classroom in front of you, abunch of different faces, as well as the
faculty, and there are short assignments thatyou do on a weekly basis, and you get grades
and feedback and so on.
But yeah, no, it's going very well.
It's growing as well.
Blair (01:21):
I'm glad.
Well, the reason I have you here today is you
recently wrote an essay.
It's called one of stoicism's worst ideas.
Could you summarize that for us and then I'llthrow some follow up questions at you?
Aaron (01:34):
Sure, yeah.
I should say just one word about a little bit
of background.
Is that, yes, I've been writing a number of
pieces on stoicism and done a number ofpodcasts on stoic philosophies.
This is an ancient greek philosophy that'sbecoming very popular nowadays, or at least
it's becoming sort of marketed to a popularaudience and it's gaining a lot of adherence
(01:54):
and popularity and so on.
And one of the reasons I wanted to start
writing about this is.
So my background is in ancient greek
philosophy.
So my phd was in ancient greek philosophy.
It was on Aristotle, not the Stoics.
But I have a heavy background in that.
You know, objectivism, Ein Rand's philosophyis a philosophy for living on earth.
It's a philosophy to help you guide yourselfin the functioning of your life and towards
(02:18):
successful living.
And stoicism is a philosophy that's being
promoted today as a version of that.
Right?
It's meant to be a philosophy to be lived, notjust an academic subject, but as a philosophy
to live by.
And what I found interesting was, well, what
is the guidance they're offering people today?How are they framing Stoic philosophy as a
(02:41):
valuable, or allegedly valuable tool to helpyou live better, live a better life, reduce
the anxiety you have.
What's wrong with that?
Right.
That kind of life advice.
Yeah, is good.
I think people should be turning to philosophy
for that kind of advice.
And so there's something healthy about people
looking back to philosophy, particularly prechristian philosophy, like greek philosophy,
(03:05):
for advice about how to think about life, howto frame your life, how to have a perspective
on it that is valuable and helpful for you.
That's what philosophy is for.
And so what I wanted to do is look at whatstoicism as a philosophy actually tells you
about human nature, about the world you livein, about how to function in life.
And then sort of as a parallel to that, how isthat being marketed today to a popular
(03:29):
audience who, they're not the scholars ofancient philosophy or anything, but how is it
being marketed?And this was just sort of the latest
installment of articles on this topic that'sjust a little bit of background, and then I
can.
Great.
Thank you for that.
Blair (03:43):
Yes. But again, go ahead, Martin, if you want.
Martin (03:46):
Yeah. Aaron, do you know if Ms. Friend studied or mentioned the Stoics?
Aaron (03:53):
No, she doesn't mention the Stoics.
In passing.
She mentions the german chancellor.
This must have been in the 70s, who mentioned
Marcus Aurelius and the idea that we have todo our duty.
And she mentioned his comment, and shethought, if that's all they learned after
World War II, we're not in a good position.
In effect, I'm paraphrasing, but no, she'd
ever wrote about the Stoics.
(04:14):
There are two books, I mean, at least two
books that we know she read that were kind oflarge histories of philosophy, which included
sections on the Stoics.
I've read those sections, and they're fairly
conventional presentations of stoicism.
I mean, as is often the case in kind of a
large scale history of philosophy, you get aunit devoted to that.
(04:37):
But I don't think we have any sort of marginalnotes in those books.
I don't think we have the physical copies ofthose anymore.
So it's a kind of a dead end in that regard.
This article, the one I wrote, called one of
Stoicism's worst ideas, and of course, thetitle is a bit grabby, or maybe grabby, but
(04:58):
controversial, has to do with the respect inwhich stoicism is advocating a kind of
collectivism.
The idea that the group or the whole or the
collective as a whole is what matters.
That's what's most important, and you're just
a part of that, and your value really comesfrom your role in contributing to or serving
(05:23):
that whole.
And so here's how this came about.
So Nancy Sherman, she's a professor ofphilosophy at Georgetown University, and she's
written a lot about stoicism and ancientphilosophy in general.
And she wrote a book called Stoic Wisdom.
I think the subtitle is ancient lessons for
modern resilience.
(05:44):
I believe that's what it's called.
And she published a number of articles sort ofpromoting themes from that book.
And one of the themes that she stresses in thebook is that contrary to the popularization of
stoic philosophy today, kind of on the Ryanholiday model, if you're familiar with him,
(06:04):
one of the major popularizers of stoicism, shesays, look, ancient philosophy was not, it's
all about you and your personal developmentand how to supercharge your career.
And so it was not about you as an individual,about your life, your self improvement, your
self development.
It's too focused, the modern perspective that
(06:26):
she thinks the modern populars are focusingtoo much on the individual.
And she says, if you look at ancient stoicismand you take that philosophy seriously, it's
not an individualistic philosophy.
And what the Stoics teaches, the stoics we'll
talk about to the extent to which it'sindividualistic or collectivistic or whatever,
there's a lot to explore there.
(06:46):
But she says, if you look at what the actual
ancient stoics say, they really emphasize theidea that the individual is a part, a
fragment, like a limb of a larger cosmicentity.
And the individual's proper role is a devotionto the common good, to the whole.
(07:07):
And they have a kind of a deeply religiousperspective on the world.
So the idea is, and bear with me here becausethis sounds a little strange, but whatever,
that's a stoic view, go for it.
So the idea is that the universe as a whole,
the cosmos as a whole, is God.
And it's in a way that there's a divine reason
(07:31):
that shapes, permeates everything in thecosmos.
It's the only active force in the universe.
Everything else is passive matter.
And that individual living organisms are, ineffect, held together and permeated by this
divine reason.
So for human beings, they agree that human
(07:52):
beings, man is the rational animal, right?Reason is our distinctive characteristic.
It's what makes us human.
But even our own reason is a fragment of the
divine reason within us that permeateseverything else.
So there's a real sense that you are a part, afragment, a chip, a piece of a larger cosmic
(08:14):
whole.
And since God the divine reason, they don't
think of it as well.
I don't want to get into that.
This divine reason shapes everythingprovidentially.
So everything that happens is for the good,and it's all sort of divinely sent.
(08:34):
So if you're born a cripple, that's what Godwants you to be.
And so you should play that part well in thedivine play, so to speak.
So whatever happens to you is good, and youhave to view it that way.
And so you have a role or a place in a cosmicwhole, the good of which is the most important
(08:58):
thing.
So you might think from your own limited
perspective, look, my child was hit by atruck.
And you might think that from a limitedperspective, that that's bad, that you've
suffered something terrible or catastrophic orsome evil has befallen you.
And their answer is, no, that's not reallytrue.
Everything is divinely sent.
Everything is for the best.
If you could see the whole perspective of howthis fits into the whole cosmos, it all fits
(09:21):
into the web of the cosmos.
That is ultimately what the good is.
It'll articulate that last part.
And so you should accept what happens with
equanimity and even with praise or joy fromthat regard perspective, because it's all
coming from the good, but it's the whole thatmatters, or at least that matters most.
(09:47):
Yeah.
And so this quote I have from Epictetus, this
captures this.
I'll read this, and then I'll just be quiet.
Go ahead.
He says, this is Epictetus.
So he's 50 to 135 AD, and he says, for thoseof you who don't know him, he's a major
teacher of stoicism in the roman period.
(10:08):
So he says, consider who you are.
You are a citizen of the world and a part ofit, one of the leading parts, because you're
capable of understanding the divine governanceof the world and the implications of that
governance.
So what is the job of a citizen?
Never to act in his own interest, but tobehave as a hand or foot would.
(10:30):
If it had reason and was able to understandthe natural order of things, it would never
have inclinations or desires except byreference to the whole.
Hence, if a truly good person were to foreseethe future, he wouldn't resist even illness,
death, or mutilation, because he'd realizethat it's what he's been allotted at the
behest of the universe, and that the whole ismore important than the part, the city, than
(10:55):
the citizen.
And I think that expresses the point
unequivocally it requires unpacking, I think.
So the idea is that the individual is a part,
a fragment of a larger whole, and that thewell being of that whole, the good of that
whole, supersedes anyone's private interests.
And I think that's the essence metaphysically.
(11:15):
That's the essence of collectivism.
And that's really where the focus of the
argument is.
There's a metaphysical perspective of an
individual's relationship to the whole that iscollectivistic metaphysically.
And the ways in which that is being used, inthis case by Nancy Sherman, like a modern
philosophy professor, to push a kind of acollectivist ethos.
(11:38):
She's leveraging that, I think, metaphysicallycollectivistic sort of view of the individual.
To kind of push a collectivist ethos, well, weshould devote ourselves to the common good and
so on.
And that's what concerned me.
It's the leveraging of that metaphysicalperspective to push collectivism today.
Yeah, that was the focus of the article, and Iargued that you're not a hand or a part or a
(12:01):
fragment of some larger whole.
So the metaphysical perspective is false, and
I argue for that.
We can talk about that if you want.
And it's also dangerous, I think, to think ofoneself as I'm just a part.
It's not the place of the hand to complain ifyou're know your role is to go step in the
muck and get cut off if the body needs it.
And so I don't think it's the right way to
view yourself as an individual.
Blair (12:22):
That's correct.
Well, I wanted to quote one sentence from the
article from you.
It's quote Sherman's secularization of stoic
collectivism may be more palatable to a modernaudience, but it is a view of man and of
society that is both false and dangerous,unquote.
So, yeah, when you were talking there, imagesflashed in my head of, well, this sounds like
(12:46):
there's some christianity in there.
There's platonism in there, there's turn the
other cheek kind of thing.
Love your enemies just because everything's
been divinely sent down, so to speak.
Does that make sense?
Aaron (13:00):
Well, there's an element to that, and they don't advocate, like, abject self
sacrifice.
That's not what they do.
And we can talk about, and I'd actually liketo talk about a bit about to what extent
stoicism is a self interested philosophy.
They have a view of self interest, which is
(13:21):
interesting, no pun intended.
But the turn your other cheek thing, there's
an element of that in stoicism, in partbecause they're determinists.
But their view is that people only.
This is coming from Socrates, by the way.
This is Socrates's view, one that Aristotlechallenges but Plato accepts, is that no one
(13:45):
does wrong willingly.
And this is all over.
Plato is that when people act in ways which weregard bad or evil, they're doing so because
they think that what they're doing is good forthem.
Now, they may be really confused about what'sgood for them, but every individual, and this
goes to their psychological egoists, if youwant to put it that way.
(14:08):
Philosophically, their view is that everyoneacts for the sake of what they take to be
their own interest, necessarily.
That's just how people are built.
That's just what they do.
Now, they could have all sorts of screwed up
views about what's actually in their interest.
And so most of what greek philosophy or most
greek ethical theories argue that what youneed to figure out is what is in your
(14:33):
interest, taken long range and as the whole,and as a whole over your life.
Properly understood.
And the properly understood is where
everything gets packed in, because it dependson what you think.
Self interest, quote, properly understood,really amounts to.
And you can have very different conceptions ofwhat that is.
The stoics have a particular conception ofthat.
(14:53):
Plato has another one.
Aristotle has a different one, sure.
But.
Yeah, so it's not exactly self sacrifice in a
kind of christian way, but I think it's whenpush comes to shove, private interest needs to
bend to sort of speak public interest, or theinterest, alleged interests of the social
(15:18):
whole.
And in that respect, it's more collectivistic.
Blair (15:24):
Now, you said there is some aspect of self interest in socialism.
What is that?
Aaron (15:31):
Sure. Yeah. So I'll read you a couple of quotes because they're really illustrative.
I usually don't like to read a whole longquotes, but I'll read a few.
Go ahead.
Just so you can get a flavor of this.
And you can hear it from the horse's mouth, soto speak.
And not just my spin.
So this is Epictetus's discourses.
These are taken down by a student of his namedArian.
(15:51):
It's not literally Epictetus, but it'slectures taken down by a student.
So this is in discourses book one, chapter 19.
For anyone who wants to look it up.
He says, quote, it lies in the nature of everyliving creature, that it does everything for
its own sake.
And in general, he, namely Zeus, God, has
(16:13):
constituted the rational animal to have such anature that he cannot attain any of his own
particular goods without contributing to thecommon benefit.
And so in the end, it isn't antisocial to doeverything for one's own sake.
After all, what do you expect?That one should show no concern for oneself
and one's own benefit?How, in that case, could all living creatures
(16:35):
have one and the same principle of action,namely, attachment to themselves?
So a couple of things going on here.
One is, the stoics have this doctrine called
Oikaosis.
And it means that every living organism has a
natural built in orientation toward itself,toward its own physical constitution and
(16:58):
toward what preserves its constitution.
And they draw all sorts of examples from the
animal world.
The young calf or bull, will sort of butt with
its head because it's oriented toward itselfin a way.
It knows how to use its faculties and itsabilities, and it will naturally seek out its
(17:19):
mother's milk because it preserves it.
It'll naturally move away from or have
aversions toward things that hurt itsconstitution.
And he says, you see this across the animalworld.
So it's like nature.
God has built us to be naturally oriented
toward our self preservation and to whatpreserves that preserves ourselves.
And so they think, yeah, it's nothing wrongwith self interest.
(17:40):
In fact, you ought to be acting that way.
Nature has, in effect, nature.
God has, in effect, shown us the way thatthat's appropriate for living organisms to
engage in self preserving action.
So they're not anti self interest in that
respect.
But it's also important that that's the way
(18:01):
we're set up from the beginning.
And that once we reach the age of reason,
however, and we start to be able tocontemplate our own nature as a rational being
and the universe as a product of a divinereason.
And we're able to contemplate the fact thatwe're a part or a fragment of that total
(18:24):
cosmic whole, and that our good is bound upwith the good of that whole.
And we start to come to realize, they think arational being would start to come to realize
that, yeah, working for the common good ofthat divine whole is, I shouldn't exactly say
supersedes, but in effect, it does.
(18:45):
That's what's most important.
So working for the common good, so you movefrom a natural orientation towards self to a
conception of what's in my self interest thatinvolves me being a part of a wider whole.
So they think of my devotion to the commongood or the social whole or whatever, as that
is now the way in which I pursue my selfinterest.
(19:07):
So they're trying to push against the ideathat it's self interest versus.
It's devotion to the common good versus selfinterest.
They try to tell you that.
They try to package those together and say,
there's no contradiction between these two,because if you and somebody, they have this
formulation.
This comes out in Marcus Aurelius.
(19:28):
I don't think he originated it, but it's whatdoesn't benefit the hive, doesn't benefit the
bee.
And you can translate that in different ways,
and it's worth unpacking.
But I think the idea is that the way in which
human beings pursue their self interest asrational adult beings is to work for the
(19:48):
common good and think of the common good andthe good of the whole in every action that we
take and have that as our main referencepoint.
So we never think of our own private interestsas distinct from, or in separation from the
interests of the whole.
So it's complicated in a way.
So on the one hand, they're saying, yeah, selfinterest for sure, but they're giving you a
(20:12):
conception of what that amounts to.
That winds up meaning devotion to the common
good, and having that as your basic frame ofreference in all that you do.
And I don't think that amounts to anindividualistic philosophy.
Yeah, I'll give you one more.
Just follow up.
Okay, one more.
There's plenty to follow up there.
(20:33):
And this just gives you a sense about.
More on the issue of self interest.
So this is Epictetus's discourses, book two,chapter 22.
He says this.
Haven't you often seen how little dogs fawning
over one another and playing together, whichprompts one to exclaim, nothing could be more
(20:55):
friendly.
Like, isn't that cute?
Right?That's the editorializing.
Okay, back to the quote.
But to see what that friendship amounts to.
Throw a bit of meat between them, and you'llknow.
And likewise, if you throw a small bit of landbetween yourself and your son, you'll know how
impatient your son is to see you buried, andhow greatly you in turn long for the death of
(21:18):
your son.
Throw a pretty girl between you, and both fall
in love with her, the old man and the young.
Or again, a scrap of glory.
For as a general rule, and one should have noillusions on this matter, there is nothing
that a living creature is more stronglyattached to than its own benefit.
So whatever seems to him to be standing in theway of that benefit, be it a brother or father
(21:39):
or child or lover or beloved, he will proceedto hate, reject, and curse.
For there is nothing that he loves so much bynature as his own benefit.
For that reason, if one identifies one's ownbenefit with piety, honor one's country, one's
parents, one's friends, all of them will besafeguarded.
But if one places one's benefit in one scale,and one's friends, country and parents, et
(22:04):
cetera, in the other, the latter will all belost, because they will be outweighed by one's
own benefit.
For on whatever side I and mine are set to,
that side, the living creature mustnecessarily be inclined.
Close quote.
So the idea is this is psychological egoism,
that man is by nature determined to pursuewhat it takes to be in its own interest.
(22:27):
That's just how you're built.
You don't have no choice about it.
So what he's saying is to have an enlightenedview about your self interest, you have to
make damn sure that things like piety, honorone's country, parents, your friends, the
community, whatever, you have to learn tothink of those selves as in your interest,
because if you don't, you won't have anymotivation to have any interest in those kinds
(22:51):
of things, and you'll see them as, in fact,antagonistic toward your own benefit.
Yeah, right.
So a number of philosophical issues come up.
Is. Is that true?Objectivism, as a philosophy rejects
psychological egoism.
I do not think it's true.
I know Ayn Rand doesn't.
I don't think it's true that human beings by
(23:14):
nature and necessarily pursue what they taketo be in their own interests.
I mean, the whole phenomenon of altruism,where it's, you think of self interest as
evil, as bad, that's what makes you a badperson.
So when you think, I could do that, but that'dbe kind of selfish, I probably shouldn't do
that.
Now, the way to spin that is, so what the
(23:38):
person is really doing is they're saying it'sin my interest to be ethical.
And so when I give up self interest, my trueinterest, I take my true interest to be being
a moral person, and that's more important thanthe money or the job or the girlfriend or the
whatever it is.
But I don't think that's the right way to
frame it, because there is such a thing asthinking of something is to your advantage, to
(24:03):
your benefit.
And there is a moral perspective that says
that's wrong, and that's why one experiencespain, resentment, and so on when you act
contrary to your self interest.
So, anyway, that's a longer topic, but there's
an essay called in the virtue of selfishness.
One of the essays in there is called isn't
(24:24):
everyone selfish?And it addresses that question of
psychological egoism.
I don't think they're right about that.
But that was widespread in ancient greekphilosophy.
So it's not unique or weird or anything to thestoics.
It's the socratic view.
It was Plato's view.
It's the Stoics view.
Blair (24:41):
Yeah, okay, psychological egoism and Ayn Rand Zigoism.
Can you describe the.
Aaron (24:51):
So for first of all, psychological egoism is a deterministic doctrine.
So it's not that you've decided that as amatter of orientation to life, you're going to
pursue your own interest.
That's just how you're built.
Psychological egoism says, that's just howyou're built.
You don't have any choice in the matter.
(25:11):
And Rand says, yeah, you certainly have a
choice in the matter.
You can live like a medieval saint, or you can
pursue your own career and think of what yourown happiness, your own private, personal
happiness, consists in and work to achieve itas an explicit policy, you can take your own
life and your own happiness as your ultimatevalue, such that you can organize your values
(25:36):
and your value pursuit around that goal.
And that's a self interested life by choice.
So that's an ethical egoism.
But it's not psychological egoism.
You're not psychologically built, so you haveto function that WAy.
She thinks you have to choose that.
You have to choose self interest, and there's
all sorts of ways of being confused aboutwhat's in your interest, and you can go wrong
in all sorts of ways.
But that's a choice.
Blair (25:57):
It certainly has to be learned.
Aaron (25:59):
Yeah, it takes a long time.
Yeah.
And I don't think it's also true thatcertainly human beings, I mean, animals, come
equipped.
They have a repertoire of actions and
responses and reflexes and behavior and so on.
That is, I think, evolutionarily sort of
(26:20):
structured such that they pursue things thatthey need and avoid things that they don't.
But even that is a limited set, and they don'tdo it by choice.
They don't consider a variety of moralperspectives, and then they select this one
because it's like, that would be great, buthuman beings, I don't think, they're not born
toward that, except for the pleasure, pain.
(26:42):
Something hurts and they might jerk away from
it.
But beyond that, you don't have any guidance
in life and you're not built with it.
The OTher Thing is that objectivism takes
man'S life as the standard of valUe.
And so the idea is, when you're trying to sort
out what's good and bad.
What you're trying to sort out is what's pro
life and what's anti life.
(27:03):
What's antithetical to life, harmful, damaging
toward it and what sustains and promotes it.
So it's self consciously oriented toward the
good of man's life and not mankind.
But just like what, as a human being makes its
life go well?And so your orientation as individuals.
What makes my life go well?What kinds of methods of functioning do I need
(27:23):
to engage in.
To live successfully as a human being?
What kind of values do I need to sustain andpromote my own life?
And that's what morality is all about.
The standard of value, to the extent that you
can identify one in stoicism, I think, issomething like that which is in accordance
with nature.
So as God has set it up.
(27:45):
So if we seem to be naturally oriented towardour own self preservation, you should be
oriented.
There's normative force to that.
The way things are by nature is the good.
And so when you're trying to conform to
whatever happens in the world.
You're trying to conform to what God has sent
(28:06):
down, so to speak.
You're trying to conform to that which is in
accordance with nature.
So when you're trying to live, it's, well,
what is a human being?Well, we're a rational human being.
Therefore I ought to conform to being arational human being.
The universe is set up by a divine reason.
Who providentially and benevolently organizes
the world.
So I should treat whatever happens in the
(28:28):
world as God sent and good.
And not get frustrated about it, angry about
it, resentful about it.
So it's conformity in some sense, to God's
will, conformity to anything that happens.
And that's very unlike objectivism.
It's not.
Nature has set up x. Therefore you should
(28:48):
conform to it, let alone any kind of divinebeing.
It's what do I need to survive as a humanbeing.
And flourish as a human being.
And then to choose to embrace it consistently
across one's own life?And people who are interested can look into
her book the virtue of selfishness.
(29:08):
Particularly the initial essay called the
Objectivist Ethics.
Which goes into her orientation to morality in
some detail.
Blair (29:17):
That's a tremendous essay.
Aaron (29:20):
Tremendous. Yeah. And complex.
Blair (29:22):
And complex.
Aaron (29:23):
And even as a complex.
In one of the longer essays that she wrote.
She regards it as a distillation and a summaryof her ethics.
Not this is the detailed treatise.
It's a distillation and a summary.
So it's complex as a summary and what'scomplex by its very nature, but it's also a
(29:46):
summary.
So there's a lot to unpack in that essay.
Blair (29:50):
Did she ever expand on that in other works?
Aaron (29:54):
Well, I think she regarded as like the false statement is in Atlas Shrugged.
Yes, of mean.
That's one of the interesting things about the
way Einran does philosophy, is she formulatedher philosophy so that she could write her
novels and project the kind of characters andsituations and conflicts that she wanted to
(30:16):
project.
And so after she finished Atlas Shrugged in
1957, she got a lot of questions from fans ofher novels, like, can you elaborate on this
point or that point of your philosophy?And so she started writing some newsletters
where she would elaborate on elements of herphilosophy in essay form, in like nonfiction
form, and apply her philosophy in thatperspective to all sorts of elements in the
(30:39):
culture.
But I brought up the issue of self interest in
the context of stoicism, because some of thecriticisms I've gotten mostly from Donald
Robertson, he's the kind of figure in themodern stoicism movement.
He's written books on stoicism and so on.
He's got a Facebook page that he moderates on.
(31:00):
So he interprets.
What I'm doing in that essay is saying, well,
you're making stoicism out to be thiscollectivist viewpoint.
And it sounds like you're trying to say it'sall about self sacrifice, and as if stoicism
was against self interest.
(31:22):
And I don't actually say that in the article,
I don't make that argument.
So I think that's a misreading of my argument.
But there's a sense in which it'sunderstandable, because I don't address in the
article I was going to, but I decided not to,just for the sake of delimitation, but the
issue of how they think about self interest.
(31:43):
And so it's good to talk about that a bit
today.
I guess I've already done that.
But they have a view of self interest, andit's not all about self sacrificial service to
others on some sort of christian model.
But nonetheless, if the idea is that your main
focus in life should be the common good, thatis not an individualistic philosophy.
(32:04):
I don't think it's a self interestedphilosophy.
And particularly if the idea is, if push comesto shove and it's private interest versus
public interest, so to speak, and publicinterest should count.
There is an element of self sacrifice there,even if they try to say no, but the way in
which you achieve your own good is by servingthe common good.
(32:25):
Now, you can make that kind of claim, but Ithink it's.
Martin (32:31):
Aaron, to take like a devil's advocate question.
If we are individuals and we voluntarily joina free society in that social context, how
would that work both with objectivism and therational form of stew?
Aaron (32:52):
I'm not sure if I understand that.
If an individual voluntarily chooses to be a
part of a free society, because you're notinitiating force against others, you engage in
voluntary agreements and contractualagreements, and you trade and use reason, not
force and so on.
(33:13):
So if you do that, what then?
Martin (33:15):
Yeah, so isn't that.
Then it's not a common good, but then it's, as
you said, voluntarily.
But we are in a social context.
Blair (33:22):
And.
Aaron (33:24):
Yeah, I think I see what you mean.
So objectivism would reject the idea also that
there's a necessary clash between anindividual's self interest and society, if you
want to put it that way.
I think that an objectivism thinks that if
individuals are functioning rational accordingto rational self interest, their interests
(33:46):
don't actually clash.
And she has an essay about that.
It's short and dense, but it's very good andinsightful.
It's called the conflicts.
And the conflicts is in quotes, like scare
quotes, the conflicts of men's interests.
It's also in the virtue of selfishness where
she talks about this.
She says why there are no necessary conflicts
(34:07):
of interest between rational men.
But if each of us is pursuing our own
happiness, pursuing our own goals, pursuingour own career for our own personal, private
happiness, and not using force on otherpeople, that's the best kind of society.
(34:27):
So it's my pursuit of my career.
So I'm a philosopher by profession, and I
teach and I write and I give talks andinterviews and things.
And it's like my pursuit of that goal just formy own personal interest, think about what
that involves.
My whole career is helping others.
(34:47):
That's what I do.
That's what a teacher does.
You try to advance a student's understanding.
I mean, you might think this is a bad
philosophy and you shouldn't be teaching.
You could say, all this is horrible.
But what I'm saying is, I don't think that.
But what I'm saying is that if I pursue my
self interest, it's at the expense of otherpeople.
I mean, if you're producing some kind of valuethat's worthy of trade, you're often producing
(35:10):
something that people actually find valuableand are willing to pay for and to support and
so on.
Yes.
Blair (35:15):
You're actually benefiting others.
Aaron (35:17):
Yeah. My main focus is not how can I help people?
It's how can I do what I love and I choosesomething that I think is personally important
to me, personally meaningful to me.
I enjoy the helping.
I enjoy the fact that I'm advancing people'sunderstanding of philosophic issues, and I
(35:39):
think helping them better integrate this intheir lives so that they can live better
lives.
I mean, this is part of what's interesting
about my work, what I take myself to be doing,but it's not altruistic and it's not self
sacrificial.
So I don't say, well, help other people and
grit your what I I do what I like because Ienjoy it.
(36:01):
But I think that there's not a clash inobjectivism between the pursuit of rational, I
mean, the common good.
I mean, Einrand has this whole view, but the
common good, there's no such thing as thecommon good.
There's something really wrong with that wholeconcept.
If it means anything rationally, if it has anyintelligible meaning, that's not mystical.
It means the good of every individual, justtaken as an aggregate.
(36:26):
And if that's what you mean, then there's somesense to it.
But even if objectivism says no, your goal isnot to work for, to increase the total
aggregate of individual good, that's not yourgoal.
Again, I think that's altruistic.
But the way in which it's presented in
stoicism is the common whole, really is thecosmos, the divinely infused cosmos, and man
(36:50):
as a community, as a sort of global communityof rational beings taken as a kind of family.
They think all mankind are kin in some respectby virtue of the possession of God's reason
within us.
So we're kind of like family, and we should
treat outsiders and others more like kin andlike you're all one big family.
(37:11):
And their kinship, their obligations towardkin that they think we should increasingly
kind of take on, again, that's morealtruistic.
Yes.
Yeah.
Martin (37:22):
And Aaron, thanks for replying in this way, because then I could do a short plug and
then Blair could continue to.
If you value this conversation and this
knowledge, thanks to Aaron and our podcast,you could then send a donation through like
boostogram or streaming Satushis.
(37:43):
So go to Truefans FM and join there, sign up
for an account, and then Blair and I will talkabout this in a dual episode in the so back to
you, Blair.
Blair (37:58):
All right, thank you, Aaron.
What are some of the other criticisms you've
received.
Aaron (38:04):
Yeah. So one was about stoicism and self interest, and the other one was about the
respect in which it's individualistic orcollectivistic.
Let's see if I can pull this up.
Yeah, and this is coming along the same kind
of vein.
So on Twitter, Donald Robertson says,
(38:26):
stoicism.
Quote, stoicism doesn't reject individualism
per se.
It argues that the interests of the
individual, properly understood, coincide withthose of the whole of mankind.
This article misrepresents the stoic positionand thereby commits the fallacy of the straw
man.
(38:46):
Nobody wants to be accused of committing a
straw man, but it does happen.
So it's not surprising that someone might
think that if you don't address or talk aboutthe respect in which an individual's good,
properly understood, coincides with the goodof mankind.
Now, I think there's a respect in which that'strue, that an individual's interests, properly
(39:11):
understood, coincide with those of mankind inthe sense that what individual human beings
across the board need as human beings is, inessence, the same, and they should function by
the similar methods.
They should pursue the similar kinds of
fundamental values that they need, just quaman, just because they're human beings.
(39:33):
So in that sense, pursuing one's interest isin harmony with and in line with what
everybody else needs.
But if you take that quote seriously from
Epictetus, the whole is more important thanthe part.
The city is more important than the citizen.
So if you take that, there is a kind of, well,
(39:54):
you should never act in your own interest, butbehave as a hand or foot would if it had
reason.
It realizes, look, it's a part, you're a part,
and there's a larger hole.
And wouldn't you object if your foot decided,
well, I'm not going to walk today.
I'm not going to do it.
I don't want to.
Who's going to make me?
I'm not going to do it.
I have other interests.
(40:15):
I just want to just sit here and not moveanywhere.
You'd be like, you're a foot, damn it.
You're not your own individual autonomous
agent.
You're a limb.
And the more you think about yourself likethat, and they're pushing you to think about
yourself like that.
That is not an individualistic perspective.
I think what individualism requires is thefull grasp metaphysically that an individual
(40:40):
is an autonomous agent.
And that doesn't mean he can meet all his
survival needs as a baby or an infant justborn.
That's not what it means or a lone wolf.
Or a lone wolf.
Yeah.
It means that as a human being, you are a
separate living organism and that your meansof survival is the use of your individual
(41:05):
reason to pursue the goals that you need tosustain your life and to live it.
And that what you need is freedom, in effect,to live by your own judgment, to live by your
own reason, to enact what reason prescribes,if you want to put it that way.
But it's not a focus on, well, the whole ismore important than the part.
The city is more important than the citizen.
No, it isn't.
(41:27):
I would say it's not the city or the whole orthe collective that's the primary.
A collective or a society or a group is aderivative phenomenon.
What really exists are individuals.
A society is just an abstraction.
A society is the way in which we think as aconceptual whole, a group of individuals
(41:50):
living together in the same area, followingcertain kinds of rules or accepting certain
kind of laws, and they interact with eachother and so on.
It's an abstraction.
It's a way of holding a number of individuals
who exist separately but who interact witheach other in all sorts of complex ways.
The society is not an entity that can have agood, that you can work toward its good.
(42:15):
It doesn't mean anything.
The only thing it can mean is you work for the
good of others versus yourself.
And that's altruism versus self sacrifice.
Yeah.
Altruism versus.
Yeah.
Martin (42:28):
And that's good, Aaron, because that's probably why I asked that question.
Because in today's discussion, debate insociety, and what I see as an american in
spirit, what's going on in America is that youdon't have these kind of voices as you are now
presenting it is all about society.
Common, go good.
(42:49):
And the citizens are only like, in acollective in one way, either from the other
side or from the other side.
Aaron (42:59):
Yeah. So you get a lot of different voices pushing this view and giving voice to
it.
So you probably all remember, or many of your
audience will remember, I'm sure you do, thatyou didn't build that comment that Obama made
also.
He wasn't the first to make it, but he gave
voice to it in a way that got some attention.
(43:23):
And the idea is, well, if you got a business,
you didn't build that.
Or at least if you can interpret his comments
in different ways.
But the idea was kind of like, look, okay, you
built a part of it at least, right?It's not like you didn't do anything, but you
(43:43):
use the roads and this is publicinfrastructure.
And you were educated in government schools,public schools.
And the community has done so much to buildwho you are that if you're successful, well,
yeah, I guess you can take a bit of credit forsome of the things that you did yourself.
But a lot of this is really made possible byothers and other people's contributions.
(44:06):
And so don't go thinking you're some sort ofself made man or some sort of like, you earned
it all.
I mean, that's just bs on this view.
And it's pushing you to think of, look, you'rea product of society and therefore you owe
society if you use the roads or you went topublic school.
I went to public school.
(44:27):
I didn't have much of a choice.
My parents couldn't afford private school.
And so you have to go to the state schools,
largely because the state schools have drivenout.
They don't exist on the market and so theydon't have to compete with schools.
So you don't really get competition in themarket of education.
So everything's ridiculously expensive inprivate schools.
But anyway, I digress.
But there's some contribution from society to
(44:50):
your development.
So you owe society.
And so this is one form in which you're meantto be thought as a part and a product of a
collective.
And so you then, as a result, owe to give back
or they have a right to part of your profitsand your proceeds because you didn't do it all
on your own.
That's the idea.
(45:12):
Now, the fact that those contributions weredone by force and you had no choice about it,
that's not taken into account morally.
And it should be if somebody robs me, robs my
bank account and builds a sidewalk in front ofmy house such that I have to walk on it, do I
owe this society now because I walk on thesidewalk?
(45:33):
It's ridiculous.
Martin (45:36):
Or the flipcoin where this called make America great again, so called group that also
have some claims that it's like a nation, theyare building a wall or something like that.
Aaron (45:52):
Yeah. I mean, nationalism has this view, too.
It's your country, your country.
You owe some kind of service to your country.
Your country comes first, not you.
As an, my individualistic choice might be,
look, I want to move a large portion of mylabor force to southeast Asia to help me save
(46:12):
a lot of money on labor costs so I can offermy product at a more competitive rate.
And they.
No, no, you're taking away american jobs.
You can't move your company's employmentabroad.
Why?Well, because Americans need.
It's Americans, the collective.
It's a national collective that needs your
sacrifice, in effect, and that's what you oweyour allegiance to.
(46:33):
And that's bullshit, too.
Okay, I'll put it in different terms.
That's a collectivist perspective.
Blair (46:42):
We'll leave the actual quote.
Aaron (46:43):
I'm happy to say bullshit, because it is if you think it's false, as I do, but it's
a collectivistic view of an individual'srelationship to others.
Blair (46:55):
So my final question, Aaron, is.
Aaron (46:59):
Why.
Blair (47:00):
Are Ayn Rand's ideas more important than ever?
Aaron (47:08):
Question. But I'll put it this way.
I have an answer to this that I think makes
sense.
It makes sense to me, is that she's the only
person, only philosophic figure that I canthink of who unapologetically argues and
(47:30):
defends this position, that your life is yourown, that the moral life is to figure out what
your own life and happiness require and to gopursue it.
And that that's the moral, that's the good.
(47:52):
And no one else makes those claims.
That an individual has the moral right topursue his own life and his own happiness
without the burden of service to others,sacrifice to others, and so on.
It's just that your life is your own, and thegood is to live it.
And she's the only voice that has that sort ofperspective.
(48:15):
And I think it's so needed today.
I think the culture is whatever you think
about.
Oh, people are materialistic, and it's all
about me, and that's all superficial.
The culture is saturated with altruism and
saturated with collectivism.
And I think what you need is a contrast, is
someone that says that all of this is wrong,and at a fundamental level, like fundamentally
(48:39):
wrong, not wrong at the margins, not a littleshaky.
It needs to be propped up.
No, it's just fundamentally and deeply wrong
and anti life.
And to offer a new moral perspective, and
that's one of the rarest things to get, is anew moral framework, a new moral perspective,
and one that is life enhancing, lifepromoting, life sustaining, I think, is what
(48:59):
Einran argues in depth.
And I think that's why we need it the most.
Martin (49:04):
And, Aaron, you said that in the green room.
So if you want to have intellectual ammunitionhere, you have a project there.
Could you tell about that with audiorecordings of Rand's commentary?
Aaron (49:16):
Yeah, we do have a new one of the many things that we offer at the Inrad Institute,
we have a series of, in effect, podcasts.
They're like brief episodes of Aynrand
speaking herself in her own voice.
These are recordings that are coming from some
of her Ford hall forum talks.
Some of them are coming from the Q A sessions
that occur after those talks.
(49:38):
And they're sort of smaller byte size or two
or three bytes size clips from her offering aunique perspective on many different things
that are relevant in our culture today.
That's one thing that we're offering.
We have a journal called New Ideal, where wepublish articles on a regular basis and
(50:00):
podcasts called New Ideal Live, which you canwatch on YouTube.
We also have something called the EinrandUniversity, which is a place where.
Well, I should say place.
It's a virtual space where you can come study
with philosophers and intellectuals.
At the Einrand Institute, you can study
objectivism, like in live courses over Zoom.
There are other classmates, and you do
(50:21):
assignments and get feedback on yourassignments, and there are readings and
lectures and so on where you can actually comestudy formally with some of the top people in
objectivism in the world.
So there's a lot Ari has to offer in that
respect to anyone who wants to take advantageof it.
Blair (50:38):
That's great. Great, Aaron.
Thank you so much, Aaron.
Aaron (50:42):
My pleasure.
Blair (50:43):
Today we've been talking with Aaron Smith, fellow with the Ayindran Institute.
And, Aaron, thanks for Manning the foxholewith us.
Aaron (50:51):
You're welcome.
You're welcome.
All right.
Thank you.
Martin (50:55):
Thank you.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to another episode of the secular
Foxhole podcast.
Today we have a special guest.
Aaron Smith is with us from the AindrandInstitute.
Aaron is a fellow at the institute where helectures and develops educational content for
the institute's intellectual training andoutreach programs.
(00:32):
He's also a member of the Einran Universityfaculty.
How is that university going, Aaron?
Aaron (00:37):
Oh, it's going very this.
The Aynran University is an educational
product or program, if you want to call itthat, that the institute offers where you can
study Einran's philosophy, objectivism, withthe experts at ARI.
So all of the faculty are phds in philosophyand also experts in Rand's philosophy in
(01:00):
particular.
So we have numerous courses that people can
take live.
So you log on live via Zoom.
There's a whole classroom in front of you, abunch of different faces, as well as the
faculty, and there are short assignments thatyou do on a weekly basis, and you get grades
and feedback and so on.
But yeah, no, it's going very well.
It's growing as well.
Blair (01:21):
I'm glad.
Well, the reason I have you here today is you
recently wrote an essay.
It's called one of stoicism's worst ideas.
Could you summarize that for us and then I'llthrow some follow up questions at you?
Aaron (01:34):
Sure, yeah.
I should say just one word about a little bit
of background.
Is that, yes, I've been writing a number of
pieces on stoicism and done a number ofpodcasts on stoic philosophies.
This is an ancient greek philosophy that'sbecoming very popular nowadays, or at least
it's becoming sort of marketed to a popularaudience and it's gaining a lot of adherence
(01:54):
and popularity and so on.
And one of the reasons I wanted to start
writing about this is.
So my background is in ancient greek
philosophy.
So my phd was in ancient greek philosophy.
It was on Aristotle, not the Stoics.
But I have a heavy background in that.
You know, objectivism, Ein Rand's philosophyis a philosophy for living on earth.
It's a philosophy to help you guide yourselfin the functioning of your life and towards
(02:18):
successful living.
And stoicism is a philosophy that's being
promoted today as a version of that.
Right?
It's meant to be a philosophy to be lived, notjust an academic subject, but as a philosophy
to live by.
And what I found interesting was, well, what
is the guidance they're offering people today?How are they framing Stoic philosophy as a
(02:41):
valuable, or allegedly valuable tool to helpyou live better, live a better life, reduce
the anxiety you have.
What's wrong with that?
Right.
That kind of life advice.
Yeah, is good.
I think people should be turning to philosophy
for that kind of advice.
And so there's something healthy about people
looking back to philosophy, particularly prechristian philosophy, like greek philosophy,
(03:05):
for advice about how to think about life, howto frame your life, how to have a perspective
on it that is valuable and helpful for you.
That's what philosophy is for.
And so what I wanted to do is look at whatstoicism as a philosophy actually tells you
about human nature, about the world you livein, about how to function in life.
And then sort of as a parallel to that, how isthat being marketed today to a popular
(03:29):
audience who, they're not the scholars ofancient philosophy or anything, but how is it
being marketed?And this was just sort of the latest
installment of articles on this topic that'sjust a little bit of background, and then I
can.
Great.
Thank you for that.
Blair (03:43):
Yes. But again, go ahead, Martin, if you want.
Martin (03:46):
Yeah. Aaron, do you know if Ms. Friend studied or mentioned the Stoics?
Aaron (03:53):
No, she doesn't mention the Stoics.
In passing.
She mentions the german chancellor.
This must have been in the 70s, who mentioned
Marcus Aurelius and the idea that we have todo our duty.
And she mentioned his comment, and shethought, if that's all they learned after
World War II, we're not in a good position.
In effect, I'm paraphrasing, but no, she'd
ever wrote about the Stoics.
(04:14):
There are two books, I mean, at least two
books that we know she read that were kind oflarge histories of philosophy, which included
sections on the Stoics.
I've read those sections, and they're fairly
conventional presentations of stoicism.
I mean, as is often the case in kind of a
large scale history of philosophy, you get aunit devoted to that.
(04:37):
But I don't think we have any sort of marginalnotes in those books.
I don't think we have the physical copies ofthose anymore.
So it's a kind of a dead end in that regard.
This article, the one I wrote, called one of
Stoicism's worst ideas, and of course, thetitle is a bit grabby, or maybe grabby, but
(04:58):
controversial, has to do with the respect inwhich stoicism is advocating a kind of
collectivism.
The idea that the group or the whole or the
collective as a whole is what matters.
That's what's most important, and you're just
a part of that, and your value really comesfrom your role in contributing to or serving
(05:23):
that whole.
And so here's how this came about.
So Nancy Sherman, she's a professor ofphilosophy at Georgetown University, and she's
written a lot about stoicism and ancientphilosophy in general.
And she wrote a book called Stoic Wisdom.
I think the subtitle is ancient lessons for
modern resilience.
(05:44):
I believe that's what it's called.
And she published a number of articles sort ofpromoting themes from that book.
And one of the themes that she stresses in thebook is that contrary to the popularization of
stoic philosophy today, kind of on the Ryanholiday model, if you're familiar with him,
(06:04):
one of the major popularizers of stoicism, shesays, look, ancient philosophy was not, it's
all about you and your personal developmentand how to supercharge your career.
And so it was not about you as an individual,about your life, your self improvement, your
self development.
It's too focused, the modern perspective that
(06:26):
she thinks the modern populars are focusingtoo much on the individual.
And she says, if you look at ancient stoicismand you take that philosophy seriously, it's
not an individualistic philosophy.
And what the Stoics teaches, the stoics we'll
talk about to the extent to which it'sindividualistic or collectivistic or whatever,
there's a lot to explore there.
(06:46):
But she says, if you look at what the actual
ancient stoics say, they really emphasize theidea that the individual is a part, a
fragment, like a limb of a larger cosmicentity.
And the individual's proper role is a devotionto the common good, to the whole.
(07:07):
And they have a kind of a deeply religiousperspective on the world.
So the idea is, and bear with me here becausethis sounds a little strange, but whatever,
that's a stoic view, go for it.
So the idea is that the universe as a whole,
the cosmos as a whole, is God.
And it's in a way that there's a divine reason
(07:31):
that shapes, permeates everything in thecosmos.
It's the only active force in the universe.
Everything else is passive matter.
And that individual living organisms are, ineffect, held together and permeated by this
divine reason.
So for human beings, they agree that human
(07:52):
beings, man is the rational animal, right?Reason is our distinctive characteristic.
It's what makes us human.
But even our own reason is a fragment of the
divine reason within us that permeateseverything else.
So there's a real sense that you are a part, afragment, a chip, a piece of a larger cosmic
(08:14):
whole.
And since God the divine reason, they don't
think of it as well.
I don't want to get into that.
This divine reason shapes everythingprovidentially.
So everything that happens is for the good,and it's all sort of divinely sent.
(08:34):
So if you're born a cripple, that's what Godwants you to be.
And so you should play that part well in thedivine play, so to speak.
So whatever happens to you is good, and youhave to view it that way.
And so you have a role or a place in a cosmicwhole, the good of which is the most important
(08:58):
thing.
So you might think from your own limited
perspective, look, my child was hit by atruck.
And you might think that from a limitedperspective, that that's bad, that you've
suffered something terrible or catastrophic orsome evil has befallen you.
And their answer is, no, that's not reallytrue.
Everything is divinely sent.
Everything is for the best.
If you could see the whole perspective of howthis fits into the whole cosmos, it all fits
(09:21):
into the web of the cosmos.
That is ultimately what the good is.
It'll articulate that last part.
And so you should accept what happens with
equanimity and even with praise or joy fromthat regard perspective, because it's all
coming from the good, but it's the whole thatmatters, or at least that matters most.
(09:47):
Yeah.
And so this quote I have from Epictetus, this
captures this.
I'll read this, and then I'll just be quiet.
Go ahead.
He says, this is Epictetus.
So he's 50 to 135 AD, and he says, for thoseof you who don't know him, he's a major
teacher of stoicism in the roman period.
(10:08):
So he says, consider who you are.
You are a citizen of the world and a part ofit, one of the leading parts, because you're
capable of understanding the divine governanceof the world and the implications of that
governance.
So what is the job of a citizen?
Never to act in his own interest, but tobehave as a hand or foot would.
(10:30):
If it had reason and was able to understandthe natural order of things, it would never
have inclinations or desires except byreference to the whole.
Hence, if a truly good person were to foreseethe future, he wouldn't resist even illness,
death, or mutilation, because he'd realizethat it's what he's been allotted at the
behest of the universe, and that the whole ismore important than the part, the city, than
(10:55):
the citizen.
And I think that expresses the point
unequivocally it requires unpacking, I think.
So the idea is that the individual is a part,
a fragment of a larger whole, and that thewell being of that whole, the good of that
whole, supersedes anyone's private interests.
And I think that's the essence metaphysically.
(11:15):
That's the essence of collectivism.
And that's really where the focus of the
argument is.
There's a metaphysical perspective of an
individual's relationship to the whole that iscollectivistic metaphysically.
And the ways in which that is being used, inthis case by Nancy Sherman, like a modern
philosophy professor, to push a kind of acollectivist ethos.
(11:38):
She's leveraging that, I think, metaphysicallycollectivistic sort of view of the individual.
To kind of push a collectivist ethos, well, weshould devote ourselves to the common good and
so on.
And that's what concerned me.
It's the leveraging of that metaphysicalperspective to push collectivism today.
Yeah, that was the focus of the article, and Iargued that you're not a hand or a part or a
(12:01):
fragment of some larger whole.
So the metaphysical perspective is false, and
I argue for that.
We can talk about that if you want.
And it's also dangerous, I think, to think ofoneself as I'm just a part.
It's not the place of the hand to complain ifyou're know your role is to go step in the
muck and get cut off if the body needs it.
And so I don't think it's the right way to
view yourself as an individual.
Blair (12:22):
That's correct.
Well, I wanted to quote one sentence from the
article from you.
It's quote Sherman's secularization of stoic
collectivism may be more palatable to a modernaudience, but it is a view of man and of
society that is both false and dangerous,unquote.
So, yeah, when you were talking there, imagesflashed in my head of, well, this sounds like
(12:46):
there's some christianity in there.
There's platonism in there, there's turn the
other cheek kind of thing.
Love your enemies just because everything's
been divinely sent down, so to speak.
Does that make sense?
Aaron (13:00):
Well, there's an element to that, and they don't advocate, like, abject self
sacrifice.
That's not what they do.
And we can talk about, and I'd actually liketo talk about a bit about to what extent
stoicism is a self interested philosophy.
They have a view of self interest, which is
(13:21):
interesting, no pun intended.
But the turn your other cheek thing, there's
an element of that in stoicism, in partbecause they're determinists.
But their view is that people only.
This is coming from Socrates, by the way.
This is Socrates's view, one that Aristotlechallenges but Plato accepts, is that no one
(13:45):
does wrong willingly.
And this is all over.
Plato is that when people act in ways which weregard bad or evil, they're doing so because
they think that what they're doing is good forthem.
Now, they may be really confused about what'sgood for them, but every individual, and this
goes to their psychological egoists, if youwant to put it that way.
(14:08):
Philosophically, their view is that everyoneacts for the sake of what they take to be
their own interest, necessarily.
That's just how people are built.
That's just what they do.
Now, they could have all sorts of screwed up
views about what's actually in their interest.
And so most of what greek philosophy or most
greek ethical theories argue that what youneed to figure out is what is in your
(14:33):
interest, taken long range and as the whole,and as a whole over your life.
Properly understood.
And the properly understood is where
everything gets packed in, because it dependson what you think.
Self interest, quote, properly understood,really amounts to.
And you can have very different conceptions ofwhat that is.
The stoics have a particular conception ofthat.
(14:53):
Plato has another one.
Aristotle has a different one, sure.
But.
Yeah, so it's not exactly self sacrifice in a
kind of christian way, but I think it's whenpush comes to shove, private interest needs to
bend to sort of speak public interest, or theinterest, alleged interests of the social
(15:18):
whole.
And in that respect, it's more collectivistic.
Blair (15:24):
Now, you said there is some aspect of self interest in socialism.
What is that?
Aaron (15:31):
Sure. Yeah. So I'll read you a couple of quotes because they're really illustrative.
I usually don't like to read a whole longquotes, but I'll read a few.
Go ahead.
Just so you can get a flavor of this.
And you can hear it from the horse's mouth, soto speak.
And not just my spin.
So this is Epictetus's discourses.
These are taken down by a student of his namedArian.
(15:51):
It's not literally Epictetus, but it'slectures taken down by a student.
So this is in discourses book one, chapter 19.
For anyone who wants to look it up.
He says, quote, it lies in the nature of everyliving creature, that it does everything for
its own sake.
And in general, he, namely Zeus, God, has
(16:13):
constituted the rational animal to have such anature that he cannot attain any of his own
particular goods without contributing to thecommon benefit.
And so in the end, it isn't antisocial to doeverything for one's own sake.
After all, what do you expect?That one should show no concern for oneself
and one's own benefit?How, in that case, could all living creatures
(16:35):
have one and the same principle of action,namely, attachment to themselves?
So a couple of things going on here.
One is, the stoics have this doctrine called
Oikaosis.
And it means that every living organism has a
natural built in orientation toward itself,toward its own physical constitution and
(16:58):
toward what preserves its constitution.
And they draw all sorts of examples from the
animal world.
The young calf or bull, will sort of butt with
its head because it's oriented toward itselfin a way.
It knows how to use its faculties and itsabilities, and it will naturally seek out its
(17:19):
mother's milk because it preserves it.
It'll naturally move away from or have
aversions toward things that hurt itsconstitution.
And he says, you see this across the animalworld.
So it's like nature.
God has built us to be naturally oriented
toward our self preservation and to whatpreserves that preserves ourselves.
And so they think, yeah, it's nothing wrongwith self interest.
(17:40):
In fact, you ought to be acting that way.
Nature has, in effect, nature.
God has, in effect, shown us the way thatthat's appropriate for living organisms to
engage in self preserving action.
So they're not anti self interest in that
respect.
But it's also important that that's the way
(18:01):
we're set up from the beginning.
And that once we reach the age of reason,
however, and we start to be able tocontemplate our own nature as a rational being
and the universe as a product of a divinereason.
And we're able to contemplate the fact thatwe're a part or a fragment of that total
(18:24):
cosmic whole, and that our good is bound upwith the good of that whole.
And we start to come to realize, they think arational being would start to come to realize
that, yeah, working for the common good ofthat divine whole is, I shouldn't exactly say
supersedes, but in effect, it does.
(18:45):
That's what's most important.
So working for the common good, so you movefrom a natural orientation towards self to a
conception of what's in my self interest thatinvolves me being a part of a wider whole.
So they think of my devotion to the commongood or the social whole or whatever, as that
is now the way in which I pursue my selfinterest.
(19:07):
So they're trying to push against the ideathat it's self interest versus.
It's devotion to the common good versus selfinterest.
They try to tell you that.
They try to package those together and say,
there's no contradiction between these two,because if you and somebody, they have this
formulation.
This comes out in Marcus Aurelius.
(19:28):
I don't think he originated it, but it's whatdoesn't benefit the hive, doesn't benefit the
bee.
And you can translate that in different ways,
and it's worth unpacking.
But I think the idea is that the way in which
human beings pursue their self interest asrational adult beings is to work for the
(19:48):
common good and think of the common good andthe good of the whole in every action that we
take and have that as our main referencepoint.
So we never think of our own private interestsas distinct from, or in separation from the
interests of the whole.
So it's complicated in a way.
So on the one hand, they're saying, yeah, selfinterest for sure, but they're giving you a
(20:12):
conception of what that amounts to.
That winds up meaning devotion to the common
good, and having that as your basic frame ofreference in all that you do.
And I don't think that amounts to anindividualistic philosophy.
Yeah, I'll give you one more.
Just follow up.
Okay, one more.
There's plenty to follow up there.
(20:33):
And this just gives you a sense about.
More on the issue of self interest.
So this is Epictetus's discourses, book two,chapter 22.
He says this.
Haven't you often seen how little dogs fawning
over one another and playing together, whichprompts one to exclaim, nothing could be more
(20:55):
friendly.
Like, isn't that cute?
Right?That's the editorializing.
Okay, back to the quote.
But to see what that friendship amounts to.
Throw a bit of meat between them, and you'llknow.
And likewise, if you throw a small bit of landbetween yourself and your son, you'll know how
impatient your son is to see you buried, andhow greatly you in turn long for the death of
(21:18):
your son.
Throw a pretty girl between you, and both fall
in love with her, the old man and the young.
Or again, a scrap of glory.
For as a general rule, and one should have noillusions on this matter, there is nothing
that a living creature is more stronglyattached to than its own benefit.
So whatever seems to him to be standing in theway of that benefit, be it a brother or father
(21:39):
or child or lover or beloved, he will proceedto hate, reject, and curse.
For there is nothing that he loves so much bynature as his own benefit.
For that reason, if one identifies one's ownbenefit with piety, honor one's country, one's
parents, one's friends, all of them will besafeguarded.
But if one places one's benefit in one scale,and one's friends, country and parents, et
(22:04):
cetera, in the other, the latter will all belost, because they will be outweighed by one's
own benefit.
For on whatever side I and mine are set to,
that side, the living creature mustnecessarily be inclined.
Close quote.
So the idea is this is psychological egoism,
that man is by nature determined to pursuewhat it takes to be in its own interest.
(22:27):
That's just how you're built.
You don't have no choice about it.
So what he's saying is to have an enlightenedview about your self interest, you have to
make damn sure that things like piety, honorone's country, parents, your friends, the
community, whatever, you have to learn tothink of those selves as in your interest,
because if you don't, you won't have anymotivation to have any interest in those kinds
(22:51):
of things, and you'll see them as, in fact,antagonistic toward your own benefit.
Yeah, right.
So a number of philosophical issues come up.
Is. Is that true?Objectivism, as a philosophy rejects
psychological egoism.
I do not think it's true.
I know Ayn Rand doesn't.
I don't think it's true that human beings by
(23:14):
nature and necessarily pursue what they taketo be in their own interests.
I mean, the whole phenomenon of altruism,where it's, you think of self interest as
evil, as bad, that's what makes you a badperson.
So when you think, I could do that, but that'dbe kind of selfish, I probably shouldn't do
that.
Now, the way to spin that is, so what the
(23:38):
person is really doing is they're saying it'sin my interest to be ethical.
And so when I give up self interest, my trueinterest, I take my true interest to be being
a moral person, and that's more important thanthe money or the job or the girlfriend or the
whatever it is.
But I don't think that's the right way to
frame it, because there is such a thing asthinking of something is to your advantage, to
(24:03):
your benefit.
And there is a moral perspective that says
that's wrong, and that's why one experiencespain, resentment, and so on when you act
contrary to your self interest.
So, anyway, that's a longer topic, but there's
an essay called in the virtue of selfishness.
One of the essays in there is called isn't
(24:24):
everyone selfish?And it addresses that question of
psychological egoism.
I don't think they're right about that.
But that was widespread in ancient greekphilosophy.
So it's not unique or weird or anything to thestoics.
It's the socratic view.
It was Plato's view.
It's the Stoics view.
Blair (24:41):
Yeah, okay, psychological egoism and Ayn Rand Zigoism.
Can you describe the.
Aaron (24:51):
So for first of all, psychological egoism is a deterministic doctrine.
So it's not that you've decided that as amatter of orientation to life, you're going to
pursue your own interest.
That's just how you're built.
Psychological egoism says, that's just howyou're built.
You don't have any choice in the matter.
(25:11):
And Rand says, yeah, you certainly have a
choice in the matter.
You can live like a medieval saint, or you can
pursue your own career and think of what yourown happiness, your own private, personal
happiness, consists in and work to achieve itas an explicit policy, you can take your own
life and your own happiness as your ultimatevalue, such that you can organize your values
(25:36):
and your value pursuit around that goal.
And that's a self interested life by choice.
So that's an ethical egoism.
But it's not psychological egoism.
You're not psychologically built, so you haveto function that WAy.
She thinks you have to choose that.
You have to choose self interest, and there's
all sorts of ways of being confused aboutwhat's in your interest, and you can go wrong
in all sorts of ways.
But that's a choice.
Blair (25:57):
It certainly has to be learned.
Aaron (25:59):
Yeah, it takes a long time.
Yeah.
And I don't think it's also true thatcertainly human beings, I mean, animals, come
equipped.
They have a repertoire of actions and
responses and reflexes and behavior and so on.
That is, I think, evolutionarily sort of
(26:20):
structured such that they pursue things thatthey need and avoid things that they don't.
But even that is a limited set, and they don'tdo it by choice.
They don't consider a variety of moralperspectives, and then they select this one
because it's like, that would be great, buthuman beings, I don't think, they're not born
toward that, except for the pleasure, pain.
(26:42):
Something hurts and they might jerk away from
it.
But beyond that, you don't have any guidance
in life and you're not built with it.
The OTher Thing is that objectivism takes
man'S life as the standard of valUe.
And so the idea is, when you're trying to sort
out what's good and bad.
What you're trying to sort out is what's pro
life and what's anti life.
(27:03):
What's antithetical to life, harmful, damaging
toward it and what sustains and promotes it.
So it's self consciously oriented toward the
good of man's life and not mankind.
But just like what, as a human being makes its
life go well?And so your orientation as individuals.
What makes my life go well?What kinds of methods of functioning do I need
(27:23):
to engage in.
To live successfully as a human being?
What kind of values do I need to sustain andpromote my own life?
And that's what morality is all about.
The standard of value, to the extent that you
can identify one in stoicism, I think, issomething like that which is in accordance
with nature.
So as God has set it up.
(27:45):
So if we seem to be naturally oriented towardour own self preservation, you should be
oriented.
There's normative force to that.
The way things are by nature is the good.
And so when you're trying to conform to
whatever happens in the world.
You're trying to conform to what God has sent
(28:06):
down, so to speak.
You're trying to conform to that which is in
accordance with nature.
So when you're trying to live, it's, well,
what is a human being?Well, we're a rational human being.
Therefore I ought to conform to being arational human being.
The universe is set up by a divine reason.
Who providentially and benevolently organizes
the world.
So I should treat whatever happens in the
(28:28):
world as God sent and good.
And not get frustrated about it, angry about
it, resentful about it.
So it's conformity in some sense, to God's
will, conformity to anything that happens.
And that's very unlike objectivism.
It's not.
Nature has set up x. Therefore you should
(28:48):
conform to it, let alone any kind of divinebeing.
It's what do I need to survive as a humanbeing.
And flourish as a human being.
And then to choose to embrace it consistently
across one's own life?And people who are interested can look into
her book the virtue of selfishness.
(29:08):
Particularly the initial essay called the
Objectivist Ethics.
Which goes into her orientation to morality in
some detail.
Blair (29:17):
That's a tremendous essay.
Aaron (29:20):
Tremendous. Yeah. And complex.
Blair (29:22):
And complex.
Aaron (29:23):
And even as a complex.
In one of the longer essays that she wrote.
She regards it as a distillation and a summaryof her ethics.
Not this is the detailed treatise.
It's a distillation and a summary.
So it's complex as a summary and what'scomplex by its very nature, but it's also a
(29:46):
summary.
So there's a lot to unpack in that essay.
Blair (29:50):
Did she ever expand on that in other works?
Aaron (29:54):
Well, I think she regarded as like the false statement is in Atlas Shrugged.
Yes, of mean.
That's one of the interesting things about the
way Einran does philosophy, is she formulatedher philosophy so that she could write her
novels and project the kind of characters andsituations and conflicts that she wanted to
(30:16):
project.
And so after she finished Atlas Shrugged in
1957, she got a lot of questions from fans ofher novels, like, can you elaborate on this
point or that point of your philosophy?And so she started writing some newsletters
where she would elaborate on elements of herphilosophy in essay form, in like nonfiction
form, and apply her philosophy in thatperspective to all sorts of elements in the
(30:39):
culture.
But I brought up the issue of self interest in
the context of stoicism, because some of thecriticisms I've gotten mostly from Donald
Robertson, he's the kind of figure in themodern stoicism movement.
He's written books on stoicism and so on.
He's got a Facebook page that he moderates on.
(31:00):
So he interprets.
What I'm doing in that essay is saying, well,
you're making stoicism out to be thiscollectivist viewpoint.
And it sounds like you're trying to say it'sall about self sacrifice, and as if stoicism
was against self interest.
(31:22):
And I don't actually say that in the article,
I don't make that argument.
So I think that's a misreading of my argument.
But there's a sense in which it'sunderstandable, because I don't address in the
article I was going to, but I decided not to,just for the sake of delimitation, but the
issue of how they think about self interest.
(31:43):
And so it's good to talk about that a bit
today.
I guess I've already done that.
But they have a view of self interest, andit's not all about self sacrificial service to
others on some sort of christian model.
But nonetheless, if the idea is that your main
focus in life should be the common good, thatis not an individualistic philosophy.
(32:04):
I don't think it's a self interestedphilosophy.
And particularly if the idea is, if push comesto shove and it's private interest versus
public interest, so to speak, and publicinterest should count.
There is an element of self sacrifice there,even if they try to say no, but the way in
which you achieve your own good is by servingthe common good.
(32:25):
Now, you can make that kind of claim, but Ithink it's.
Martin (32:31):
Aaron, to take like a devil's advocate question.
If we are individuals and we voluntarily joina free society in that social context, how
would that work both with objectivism and therational form of stew?
Aaron (32:52):
I'm not sure if I understand that.
If an individual voluntarily chooses to be a
part of a free society, because you're notinitiating force against others, you engage in
voluntary agreements and contractualagreements, and you trade and use reason, not
force and so on.
(33:13):
So if you do that, what then?
Martin (33:15):
Yeah, so isn't that.
Then it's not a common good, but then it's, as
you said, voluntarily.
But we are in a social context.
Blair (33:22):
And.
Aaron (33:24):
Yeah, I think I see what you mean.
So objectivism would reject the idea also that
there's a necessary clash between anindividual's self interest and society, if you
want to put it that way.
I think that an objectivism thinks that if
individuals are functioning rational accordingto rational self interest, their interests
(33:46):
don't actually clash.
And she has an essay about that.
It's short and dense, but it's very good andinsightful.
It's called the conflicts.
And the conflicts is in quotes, like scare
quotes, the conflicts of men's interests.
It's also in the virtue of selfishness where
she talks about this.
She says why there are no necessary conflicts
(34:07):
of interest between rational men.
But if each of us is pursuing our own
happiness, pursuing our own goals, pursuingour own career for our own personal, private
happiness, and not using force on otherpeople, that's the best kind of society.
(34:27):
So it's my pursuit of my career.
So I'm a philosopher by profession, and I
teach and I write and I give talks andinterviews and things.
And it's like my pursuit of that goal just formy own personal interest, think about what
that involves.
My whole career is helping others.
(34:47):
That's what I do.
That's what a teacher does.
You try to advance a student's understanding.
I mean, you might think this is a bad
philosophy and you shouldn't be teaching.
You could say, all this is horrible.
But what I'm saying is, I don't think that.
But what I'm saying is that if I pursue my
self interest, it's at the expense of otherpeople.
I mean, if you're producing some kind of valuethat's worthy of trade, you're often producing
(35:10):
something that people actually find valuableand are willing to pay for and to support and
so on.
Yes.
Blair (35:15):
You're actually benefiting others.
Aaron (35:17):
Yeah. My main focus is not how can I help people?
It's how can I do what I love and I choosesomething that I think is personally important
to me, personally meaningful to me.
I enjoy the helping.
I enjoy the fact that I'm advancing people'sunderstanding of philosophic issues, and I
(35:39):
think helping them better integrate this intheir lives so that they can live better
lives.
I mean, this is part of what's interesting
about my work, what I take myself to be doing,but it's not altruistic and it's not self
sacrificial.
So I don't say, well, help other people and
grit your what I I do what I like because Ienjoy it.
(36:01):
But I think that there's not a clash inobjectivism between the pursuit of rational, I
mean, the common good.
I mean, Einrand has this whole view, but the
common good, there's no such thing as thecommon good.
There's something really wrong with that wholeconcept.
If it means anything rationally, if it has anyintelligible meaning, that's not mystical.
It means the good of every individual, justtaken as an aggregate.
(36:26):
And if that's what you mean, then there's somesense to it.
But even if objectivism says no, your goal isnot to work for, to increase the total
aggregate of individual good, that's not yourgoal.
Again, I think that's altruistic.
But the way in which it's presented in
stoicism is the common whole, really is thecosmos, the divinely infused cosmos, and man
(36:50):
as a community, as a sort of global communityof rational beings taken as a kind of family.
They think all mankind are kin in some respectby virtue of the possession of God's reason
within us.
So we're kind of like family, and we should
treat outsiders and others more like kin andlike you're all one big family.
(37:11):
And their kinship, their obligations towardkin that they think we should increasingly
kind of take on, again, that's morealtruistic.
Yes.
Yeah.
Martin (37:22):
And Aaron, thanks for replying in this way, because then I could do a short plug and
then Blair could continue to.
If you value this conversation and this
knowledge, thanks to Aaron and our podcast,you could then send a donation through like
boostogram or streaming Satushis.
(37:43):
So go to Truefans FM and join there, sign up
for an account, and then Blair and I will talkabout this in a dual episode in the so back to
you, Blair.
Blair (37:58):
All right, thank you, Aaron.
What are some of the other criticisms you've
received.
Aaron (38:04):
Yeah. So one was about stoicism and self interest, and the other one was about the
respect in which it's individualistic orcollectivistic.
Let's see if I can pull this up.
Yeah, and this is coming along the same kind
of vein.
So on Twitter, Donald Robertson says,
(38:26):
stoicism.
Quote, stoicism doesn't reject individualism
per se.
It argues that the interests of the
individual, properly understood, coincide withthose of the whole of mankind.
This article misrepresents the stoic positionand thereby commits the fallacy of the straw
man.
(38:46):
Nobody wants to be accused of committing a
straw man, but it does happen.
So it's not surprising that someone might
think that if you don't address or talk aboutthe respect in which an individual's good,
properly understood, coincides with the goodof mankind.
Now, I think there's a respect in which that'strue, that an individual's interests, properly
(39:11):
understood, coincide with those of mankind inthe sense that what individual human beings
across the board need as human beings is, inessence, the same, and they should function by
the similar methods.
They should pursue the similar kinds of
fundamental values that they need, just quaman, just because they're human beings.
(39:33):
So in that sense, pursuing one's interest isin harmony with and in line with what
everybody else needs.
But if you take that quote seriously from
Epictetus, the whole is more important thanthe part.
The city is more important than the citizen.
So if you take that, there is a kind of, well,
(39:54):
you should never act in your own interest, butbehave as a hand or foot would if it had
reason.
It realizes, look, it's a part, you're a part,
and there's a larger hole.
And wouldn't you object if your foot decided,
well, I'm not going to walk today.
I'm not going to do it.
I don't want to.
Who's going to make me?
I'm not going to do it.
I have other interests.
(40:15):
I just want to just sit here and not moveanywhere.
You'd be like, you're a foot, damn it.
You're not your own individual autonomous
agent.
You're a limb.
And the more you think about yourself likethat, and they're pushing you to think about
yourself like that.
That is not an individualistic perspective.
I think what individualism requires is thefull grasp metaphysically that an individual
(40:40):
is an autonomous agent.
And that doesn't mean he can meet all his
survival needs as a baby or an infant justborn.
That's not what it means or a lone wolf.
Or a lone wolf.
Yeah.
It means that as a human being, you are a
separate living organism and that your meansof survival is the use of your individual
(41:05):
reason to pursue the goals that you need tosustain your life and to live it.
And that what you need is freedom, in effect,to live by your own judgment, to live by your
own reason, to enact what reason prescribes,if you want to put it that way.
But it's not a focus on, well, the whole ismore important than the part.
The city is more important than the citizen.
No, it isn't.
(41:27):
I would say it's not the city or the whole orthe collective that's the primary.
A collective or a society or a group is aderivative phenomenon.
What really exists are individuals.
A society is just an abstraction.
A society is the way in which we think as aconceptual whole, a group of individuals
(41:50):
living together in the same area, followingcertain kinds of rules or accepting certain
kind of laws, and they interact with eachother and so on.
It's an abstraction.
It's a way of holding a number of individuals
who exist separately but who interact witheach other in all sorts of complex ways.
The society is not an entity that can have agood, that you can work toward its good.
(42:15):
It doesn't mean anything.
The only thing it can mean is you work for the
good of others versus yourself.
And that's altruism versus self sacrifice.
Yeah.
Altruism versus.
Yeah.
Martin (42:28):
And that's good, Aaron, because that's probably why I asked that question.
Because in today's discussion, debate insociety, and what I see as an american in
spirit, what's going on in America is that youdon't have these kind of voices as you are now
presenting it is all about society.
Common, go good.
(42:49):
And the citizens are only like, in acollective in one way, either from the other
side or from the other side.
Aaron (42:59):
Yeah. So you get a lot of different voices pushing this view and giving voice to
it.
So you probably all remember, or many of your
audience will remember, I'm sure you do, thatyou didn't build that comment that Obama made
also.
He wasn't the first to make it, but he gave
voice to it in a way that got some attention.
(43:23):
And the idea is, well, if you got a business,
you didn't build that.
Or at least if you can interpret his comments
in different ways.
But the idea was kind of like, look, okay, you
built a part of it at least, right?It's not like you didn't do anything, but you
(43:43):
use the roads and this is publicinfrastructure.
And you were educated in government schools,public schools.
And the community has done so much to buildwho you are that if you're successful, well,
yeah, I guess you can take a bit of credit forsome of the things that you did yourself.
But a lot of this is really made possible byothers and other people's contributions.
(44:06):
And so don't go thinking you're some sort ofself made man or some sort of like, you earned
it all.
I mean, that's just bs on this view.
And it's pushing you to think of, look, you'rea product of society and therefore you owe
society if you use the roads or you went topublic school.
I went to public school.
(44:27):
I didn't have much of a choice.
My parents couldn't afford private school.
And so you have to go to the state schools,
largely because the state schools have drivenout.
They don't exist on the market and so theydon't have to compete with schools.
So you don't really get competition in themarket of education.
So everything's ridiculously expensive inprivate schools.
But anyway, I digress.
But there's some contribution from society to
(44:50):
your development.
So you owe society.
And so this is one form in which you're meantto be thought as a part and a product of a
collective.
And so you then, as a result, owe to give back
or they have a right to part of your profitsand your proceeds because you didn't do it all
on your own.
That's the idea.
(45:12):
Now, the fact that those contributions weredone by force and you had no choice about it,
that's not taken into account morally.
And it should be if somebody robs me, robs my
bank account and builds a sidewalk in front ofmy house such that I have to walk on it, do I
owe this society now because I walk on thesidewalk?
(45:33):
It's ridiculous.
Martin (45:36):
Or the flipcoin where this called make America great again, so called group that also
have some claims that it's like a nation, theyare building a wall or something like that.
Aaron (45:52):
Yeah. I mean, nationalism has this view, too.
It's your country, your country.
You owe some kind of service to your country.
Your country comes first, not you.
As an, my individualistic choice might be,
look, I want to move a large portion of mylabor force to southeast Asia to help me save
(46:12):
a lot of money on labor costs so I can offermy product at a more competitive rate.
And they.
No, no, you're taking away american jobs.
You can't move your company's employmentabroad.
Why?Well, because Americans need.
It's Americans, the collective.
It's a national collective that needs your
sacrifice, in effect, and that's what you oweyour allegiance to.
(46:33):
And that's bullshit, too.
Okay, I'll put it in different terms.
That's a collectivist perspective.
Blair (46:42):
We'll leave the actual quote.
Aaron (46:43):
I'm happy to say bullshit, because it is if you think it's false, as I do, but it's
a collectivistic view of an individual'srelationship to others.
Blair (46:55):
So my final question, Aaron, is.
Aaron (46:59):
Why.
Blair (47:00):
Are Ayn Rand's ideas more important than ever?
Aaron (47:08):
Question. But I'll put it this way.
I have an answer to this that I think makes
sense.
It makes sense to me, is that she's the only
person, only philosophic figure that I canthink of who unapologetically argues and
(47:30):
defends this position, that your life is yourown, that the moral life is to figure out what
your own life and happiness require and to gopursue it.
And that that's the moral, that's the good.
(47:52):
And no one else makes those claims.
That an individual has the moral right topursue his own life and his own happiness
without the burden of service to others,sacrifice to others, and so on.
It's just that your life is your own, and thegood is to live it.
And she's the only voice that has that sort ofperspective.
(48:15):
And I think it's so needed today.
I think the culture is whatever you think
about.
Oh, people are materialistic, and it's all
about me, and that's all superficial.
The culture is saturated with altruism and
saturated with collectivism.
And I think what you need is a contrast, is
someone that says that all of this is wrong,and at a fundamental level, like fundamentally
(48:39):
wrong, not wrong at the margins, not a littleshaky.
It needs to be propped up.
No, it's just fundamentally and deeply wrong
and anti life.
And to offer a new moral perspective, and
that's one of the rarest things to get, is anew moral framework, a new moral perspective,
and one that is life enhancing, lifepromoting, life sustaining, I think, is what
(48:59):
Einran argues in depth.
And I think that's why we need it the most.
Martin (49:04):
And, Aaron, you said that in the green room.
So if you want to have intellectual ammunitionhere, you have a project there.
Could you tell about that with audiorecordings of Rand's commentary?
Aaron (49:16):
Yeah, we do have a new one of the many things that we offer at the Inrad Institute,
we have a series of, in effect, podcasts.
They're like brief episodes of Aynrand
speaking herself in her own voice.
These are recordings that are coming from some
of her Ford hall forum talks.
Some of them are coming from the Q A sessions
that occur after those talks.
(49:38):
And they're sort of smaller byte size or two
or three bytes size clips from her offering aunique perspective on many different things
that are relevant in our culture today.
That's one thing that we're offering.
We have a journal called New Ideal, where wepublish articles on a regular basis and
(50:00):
podcasts called New Ideal Live, which you canwatch on YouTube.
We also have something called the EinrandUniversity, which is a place where.
Well, I should say place.
It's a virtual space where you can come study
with philosophers and intellectuals.
At the Einrand Institute, you can study
objectivism, like in live courses over Zoom.
There are other classmates, and you do
(50:21):
assignments and get feedback on yourassignments, and there are readings and
lectures and so on where you can actually comestudy formally with some of the top people in
objectivism in the world.
So there's a lot Ari has to offer in that
respect to anyone who wants to take advantageof it.
Blair (50:38):
That's great. Great, Aaron.
Thank you so much, Aaron.
Aaron (50:42):
My pleasure.
Blair (50:43):
Today we've been talking with Aaron Smith, fellow with the Ayindran Institute.
And, Aaron, thanks for Manning the foxholewith us.
Aaron (50:51):
You're welcome.
You're welcome.
All right.
Thank you.
Martin (50:55):
Thank you.
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