A number of people have asked me about "On Sanctioning the Sanctioners" (The Intellectual Activist 2/27/89), which was in part an attack on me for speaking to libertarian groups. In response, I want to set the record straight regarding my own actions, and to identify certain attitudes in the article that I think are incompatible with a philosophy of reason.
* * *
In addition to my philosophical work over the last fifteen years, I have been a polemicist for freedom. In scores of articles and speeches, my goal has been to defend individual rights on an Objectivist foundation as as clearly and forcefully as I can, to as wide an audience as possible. As a polemicist, my efforts are naturally directed at people who are not already Objectivists. To reach that audience I must speak to groups and write for publications that do not share my ideas. In using these chanchannels of communication, I try to make sure that my association with them does not put me in the position of endorsing ideas I reject. That would defeat my purpose. But I cannot engage my opponents without conferring some benefit on them, in some indirect and attenuated fashion as buying their books, helping them retain their audience, or the like. If every such benefit is to be condemned as aiding the enemy, then one cannot participate in the marketplace of ideas. One can only preach to the converted as a sorry sort of ingrown activism.
In any given case, therefore, I weigh the costs of association against the possible gains. Before I accept a writing or speaking engagement, I consider whether my sponsors are offering me access to an audience I could not otherwise have reached; or whether I would be helping them attract an audience they could not otherwise have earned. I consider whether my sponsors have a definite editorial policy or ideological commitment opposed to Objectivism, and, if so, whether they are willing to have me state my disagreement explicitly. I consider whether the format of my appearance would suggest that I endorse other speakers and their views. And I consider what I know of their moral and intellectual character. In weighing these and other matters, I am always looking for long-range strategic gain at minimal cost. That's how you fight a war of ideas.
In the case of libertarians, I have turned down many invitations because I felt the costs outweighed any likely gain. But the balance sometimes tips the other way. I recently spoke at the Laissez-Faire Supper Club on the role of Objectivism in defending freedom as the incident to which Peter Schwartz refers in his articles. I have also accepted an invitation to speak on the ethical foundations of rights at the Cato Institute's Summer Seminar in July. Of the factors that affected these decisions, the following are the most important:
Libertarianism is a broadly defined movement. The subjectivists
represent one definite wing of the movement, and we cannot make
common cause with them. But they are not the only or even the
predominant wing. Many who describe themselves as libertarians
recognize that rights must be grounded in a rational, secular, and
individualist moral philosophy. I know and have worked with many
such people, and I regard them as potential allies in the cause of
liberty. I have generally found them open to Objectivist ideas, so
long as one doesn't harangue them in a spirit of sectarian
hostility. When I was invited to speak at the Cato seminar, for
example, the organizers were enthusiastic about my proposal to
explain why Ayn Rand's ethics is a better foundation for rights
than any alternative.
Laissez Faire Books is not a magazine with an editorial policy, or
a party with a platform. It is a book service, selling works that
take many different positions on philosophical issues. Unlike a
general-purpose book store, it deals primarily with works that are
relevant to a free market, but within that range the owners select
books primarily on the basis of what will interest their
customers. This includes virtually anything on Objectivism, pro or
con. One can certainly quarrel with some of their selections, but
one cannot accuse them of loading the dice against us. They are
eager to sell Ayn Rand's own works, as well as the contributions
her followers have made to the literature. I am delighted that
they have brought our work to the attention of their customers,
some of whom were not previously familiar with Objectivism, and I
have autographed copies of The Evidence of the Senses as a way to
help sales. In doing so, I was not endorsing or supporting any
work but my own. Nor do I "promote" the bookstore, as Schwartz
claims, except in the sense of regarding it as a legitimate
commercial enterprise.
The same principle applies to the Supper Club they sponsor. In
appearing there, I was not, as Schwartz says, an after-dinner
speaker at a libertarian function. I was the function. The sole
purpose of the occasion was to hear my explanation of why
individual rights and capitalism cannot be established without
reference to certain key principles of Objectivism: the absolutism
of reason, the rejection of altruism, and the commitment to life
in this world as a primary value. Since I explicitly criticized
libertarian ideas that are incompatible with those principles, I
was obviously not endorsing them.
* * *
Such, in brief, is the reasoning that has governed my conduct as a public advocate of Objectivism. Peter Schwartz regards it as transparently wrong, beyond any possibility of honest disagreement. He asserts that libertarians are the moral "equivalent" of the Soviet regime, and I the equivalent of Armand Hammer. These are wild accusations, preposterous on their face. But they exhibit a kind of zealotry that has a wider significance than the fact that Second Renaissance doesn't carry my works. I want to comment on three specific issues.
To have any hope of persuading others, we must take the
trouble to understand their context; we must approach them on an
equal footing, a mutual willingness to be persuaded by the facts;
and we must grant them time to sort through the issues and make
sure that any new conclusion is rooted in their own grasp of
reality. If we find that the other person is not open to reason,
we should abandon the effort. Tolerance does not require that we
beat our heads against the wall, or put up with willful
irrationality. But we should assume that people are rational until
we have evidence to the contrary. In this respect, tolerance is
the intellectual expression of benevolence.
Benevolence has another and to my mind more important
benefit; the growth of our own knowledge. There is much we can
learn from others if we are willing to listen. And even where they
are wrong, we strengthen the foundations of our own beliefs -- the
accuracy and range of our observations, the validity of our
concepts, the rigor of our arguments -- by the effort to prove why
they are wrong.
That's why every age of reason has welcomed diversity and
debate. The great minds of the Enlightenment declared war on the
entire apparatus of intolerance: the obsession with official or
authorized doctrine, the concepts of heresy and blasphemy, the
party lines and intellectual xenophobia, the militant hostility
among rival sects, the constant schisms and breaks, the character
assassination of those who fall from grace. These are the
techniques of irrational philosophies, such as Christianity or
Marxism, and may well have been vital to their success. But they
have no place in a philosophy of reason.
Ayn Rand left us a magnificent system of ideas. But it is not
a closed system. It is a powerful engine of integration. Let us
not starve it of fuel by shutting our minds to what is good in
other approaches. Let us test our ideas in open debate. If we are
right, we have nothing to fear; if we are wrong, we have something
to learn. Above all, let us encourage independent thought among
ourselves. Let us welcome dissent, and the restless ways of the
explorers among us. Nine out often new ideas will be mistakes, but
the tenth will let in the light.