The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand: Truth and Toleration in Objectivism

by David Kelley (Editor)

Ayn Rand's philosophical novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged made her the most controversial author of her age. Her works have drawn millions of readers and continue to sell at a breathtaking pace. Their impact on American culture runs from libertarian politics to the self-esteem movement in psychology to the rugged individualism of Silicon Valley and the Internet. Rand also launched a movement of intellectuals committed to her philosophy of Objectivism. While it has grown dramatically since Rand's death in 1982, however, the Objectivist movement has also fractured into rival camps whose differences over doctrine and strategy are compounded by competition for leadership and bitter accusations of heresy. In Truth and Toleration, philosopher David Kelley analyzes the conflicts that led him to break ranks with orthodox Objectivists and create an independent branch of the movement. Originally published in 1990 as a manifesto, this work has been revised as an analysis of the principles of intellectual collaboration-the terms on which intellectuals and activists can work together in a common cause. Going beyond the immediate issues, Kelley discusses the nature of individual responsibility for the spread of ideas and for their historical consequences. He offers a new argument for toleration based on a non-relativistic theory of truth. He describes the nature of tribalism among intellectuals, showing how the troubled legacy of Ayn Rand has followed a pattern similar to the not-so-civil wars among followers of other original and charismatic thinkers such as Marx and Freud. In a postscript for the second edition, Kelley reviews the growth in Objectivist scholarship and the influence of Rand's ideas over the past decade. Truth and Toleration is an engaging introduction to the Objectivist movement, its core ideas, and its central fissures. At the same time, it offers a case study in the sociology of intellectual movements and a frank discussion of the issues that arise whenever thinkers leave their studies to promote their idea in the public realm.

Genres: Philosophy

128 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2000

About the author

David Kelley, Ph.D., is the founder of The Atlas Society in Washington, DC, which promotes open Objectivism, the philosophy originated by novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand.

He is an internationally-known expert in Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. A former college professor of philosophy, he has written and lectured extensively on issues in epistemology, ethics, politics, social issues, and public policy. He has also been a consultant to the film adaptation of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

Reviews

[Chris Boutté · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank GOD for this book. I’ve been diving into Ayn Rand to see what her philosophy is all about, and it sounds absolutely ridiculous. When I started down this path, a philosopher friend said that there are some more rational followers of Rand’s philosophy, so I grabbed a copy of this book. Personally, this book saved Ayn Rand for me, and I don’t even know if Rand would have liked this book. David Kelley is a philosopher who starts the book by explaining how objectivists split into a couple different groups; one group is more about tolerance and a bit more deep thinking and the other is more like a religion or cult. David Kelley is in the former. My main issue with Ayn Rand’s writing was that she writes as though she has a monopoly on truth, logic, and rationality. Kelley is much more balanced, and dives into the nuances of why people believe what they believe. It sounds like the more religious-type Rand followers believe that those who disagree with any aspect of objectivism or have the wrong opinion are “evil”, and that’s nuts.

This is a great book and presents Rand’s philosophy in a much better light. It discusses personal responsibility and tolerance of others in a great way. It didn’t really cover Rand’s ideas about why we need to be extremely selfish, but that’s alright. My only main issue with this book was that it was written because of a dispute between Kelley and another Rand follower. Discussing that in the preface is cool, but the person he had beef with is brought up constantly throughout the book, so it can feel a little like petty drama at times between two people arguing.

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Also read way back in high school. An excellent book. It emerged out of the aftermath between the split between Peikoff/ARI and Kelley/TAS in the Objectivist movement, but it goes far beyond that and is of broad interest to anyone who is interested in trying to reconcile respect for objective truth and moral judgment with the importance of toleration. Far too few people (see: the social justice left and many of their right-wing opponents, as well) have internalized how and why to tolerate others who disagree with them not just on issues they consider unimportant but on the most vital moral questions.

It also contains some interesting perspectives on the proper assignment of blame to intellectuals for the crimes of regimes which they in some sense "paved the way for" (Kelley mitigates some of Rand and Peikoff's hyberbole here).

And it has a good passage on the "direct" vs. "indirect" consequences of ideas:

Only the direct effects of an idea are immediately implied by its content, and it is only these effects that exponents of the idea can be said to be advocating. The indirect effects occur because the idea is false. To grasp that such effects do or would follow from implementing the idea, one must first grasp that the idea is false. Until an exponent is prepared to abandon his idea as false, in other words, we cannot expect him to accept our assertion that his ideas have destructive consequences. In attributing such consequences to the idea, we are relying on our own opposing philosophical views. Until he is persuaded of the truth of our views, he will properly reject the attribution of the consequences to his ideas, and will reject as unfair the claim that he advocates those consequences, even implicitly.

Objectivists should be especially sensitive to this point. All of us have heard the accusation that we are fascists, and felt that the charge was a preposterous misinterpretation. The real problem is that the accusers are reading into our defense of egoism their own assumption that egoism involves the sacrifice of others to self and thus the glorification of power. If that assumption were true, then our philosophy would indeed have bad effects. But they would be indirect effects, and our critics would still have to acknowledge that we do not advocate the pursuit of power as such. Fairness requires that we draw the same distinction when we criticize other views.