The Ayn Rand Lexicon - Objectivism From A To Z Part 42

See also ENt.i.tY; EXISTENCE; METAPHYSICS; TIME; UNIVERSE.

Standard of Measurement. See Measurement.

Standard of Value. The Objectivist ethics holds man's life as the standard of value-and his own life as the ethical purpose of every individual man.

The difference between "standard" and "purpose" in this context is as follows: a "standard" is an abstract principle that serves as a measurement or gauge to guide a man's choices in the achievement of a concrete, specific purpose. "That which is required for the survival of man qua man" is an abstract principle that applies to every individual man. The task of applying this principle to a concrete, specific purpose-the purpose of living a life proper to a rational being-belongs to every individual man, and the life he has to live is his own, Man must choose his actions, values and goals by the standard of that which is proper to man-in order to achieve, maintain, fulfill and enjoy that ultimate value, that end in itself, which is his own life.

["The Objectivist Ethics," VOS, 19; pb 25.]

The standard of value of the Objectivist ethics-the standard by which one judges what is good or evil-is man's life, or: that which is required for man's survival qua man.

Since reason is man's basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil.

[Ibid., 16; pb 23.]

"Man's survival qua man" means the terms, methods, conditions and goals required for the survival of a rational being through the whole of his lifespan-in all those aspects of existence which are open to his choice.

[Ibid., 18; pb 24.]

See also ABSTRACTIONS and CONCRETES; LIFE; MAN; MORALITY; OBJECTIVISM; RATIONALITY; REASON; TELEOLOGICAL MEASUREMENT; ULTIMATE VALUE; VALUES; VIRTUE.

States' Rights. The const.i.tutional concept of "states' rights" pertains to the division of power between local and national authorities, and serves to protect the states from the Federal government; it does not grant to a state government an unlimited, arbitrary power over its citizens or the privilege of abrogating the citizens' individual rights.

["Racism," VOS, 180; pb 131.]

[George Wallace] is not a defender of individual rights, but merely of states' rights-which is far, far from being the same thing. When he denounces "Big Government," it is not the unlimited, arbitrary power of the state that he is denouncing, but merely its centralization-and he seeks to place the same unlimited, arbitrary power in the hands of many little governments. The break-up of a big gang into a number of warring small gangs is not a return to a const.i.tutional system nor to individual rights nor to law and order.

["The Presidential Candidates, 1968," TO, June 1968, 5.]

See also "COLLECTIVE RIGHTS"; "CONSERVATIVES"; CONSt.i.tUTION; GOVERNMENT; INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS.

Statism. The political expression of altruism is collectivism or statism, which holds that man's life and work belong to the state-to society, to the group, the gang, the race, the nation-and that the state may dispose of him in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be its own tribal, collective good.

["Introducing Objectivism," TON, Aug. 1962, 35.]

A statist system-whether of a communist, fascist, n.a.z.i, socialist or "welfare" type-is based on the ... government's unlimited power, which means: on the rule of brute force. The differences among statist systems are only a matter of time and degree; the principle is the same. Under statism, the government is not a policeman, but a legalized criminal that holds the power to use physical force in any manner and for any purpose it pleases against legally disarmed, defenseless victims.

Nothing can ever justify so monstrously evil a theory. Nothing can justify the horror, the brutality, the plunder, the destruction, the starvation, the slave-labor camps, the torture chambers, the wholesale slaughter of statist dictators.h.i.+ps.

["War and Peace," TON, Oct. 1962, 44.]

Government control of a country's economy-any kind or degree of such control, by any group, for any purpose whatsoever-rests on the basic principle of statism, the principle that man's life belongs to the state.

["Conservatism: An Obituary," CUI. 192.]

A statist is a man who believes that some men have the right to force, coerce, enslave, rob, and murder others. To be put into practice, this belief has to be implemented by the political doctrine that the government-the state-has the right to initiate the use of physical force against its citizens. How often force is to be used, against whom, to what extent, for what purpose and for whose benefit, are irrelevant questions. The basic principle and the ultimate results of all statist doctrines are the same: dictators.h.i.+p and destruction. The rest is only a matter of time.

["America's Persecuted Minority: Big Business. CUI, 47.]

If the term "statism" designates concentration of power in the state at the expense of individual liberty, then n.a.z.ism in politics was a form of statism. In principle, it did not represent a new approach to government: it was a continuation of the political absolutism-the absolute monarchies, the oligarchies, the theocracies, the random tyrannies-which has characterized most of human history.

In degree, however, the total state does differ from its predecessors: it represents statism pressed to its limits, in theory and in practice. devouring the last remnants of the individual.

[Leonard Peikoff. OP. 6: pb 16.]

The ideological root of statism (or collectivism) is the tribal premise of primordial savages who, unable to conceive of individual rights, believed that the tribe is a supreme, omnipotent ruler, that it owns the lives of its members and may sacrifice them whenever it pleases to whatever it deems to be its own "good." Unable to conceive of any social principles, save the rule of brute force, they believed that the tribe's wishes are limited only by its physical power and that other tribes are its natural prey, to be conquered, looted, enslaved, or annihilated. The history of all primitive peoples is a succession of tribal wars and intertribal slaughter. That this savage ideology now rules nations armed with nuclear weapons, should give pause to anyone concerned with mankind's survival.

Statism is a system of inst.i.tutionalized violence and perpetual civil war. It leaves men no choice but to fight to seize political power-to rob or be robbed, to kill or be killed. When brute force is the only criterion of social conduct, and unresisting surrender to destruction is the only alternative, even the lowest of men, even an animal-even a cornered rat-will fight. There can be no peace within an enslaved nation.

["The Roots of War," CUI, 36.]

The degree of statism in a country's political system, is the degree to which it breaks up the country into rival gangs and sets men against one another. When individual rights are abrogated, there is no way to determine who is ent.i.tled to what; there is no way to determine the justice of anyone's claims, desires, or interests. The criterion, therefore, reverts to the tribal concept of: one's wishes are limited only by the power of one's gang.

[Ibid.]

Statism-in fact and in principle-is nothing more than gang rule. A dictators.h.i.+p is a gang devoted to looting the effort of the productive citizens of its own country. When a statist ruler exhausts his own country's economy, he attacks his neighbors. It is his only means of postponing internal collapse and prolonging his rule. A country that violates the rights of its own citizens, will not respect the rights of its neighbors. Those who do not recognize individual rights, will not recognize the rights of nations: a nation is only a number of individuals.

Statism needs war; a free country does not. Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by production.

Observe that the major wars of history were started by the more controlled economies of the time against the freer ones. For instance, World War I was started by monarchist Germany and Czarist Russia, who dragged in their freer allies. World War II was started by the alliance of n.a.z.i Germany with Soviet Russia and their joint attack on Poland.

Observe that in World War II, both Germany and Russia seized and dismantled entire factories in conquered countries, to s.h.i.+p them home -white the freest of the mixed economies, the semi-capitalistic United States, sent billions worth of lend-lease equipment, including enthe factories, to its allies.

Germany and Russia needed war; the United States did not and gained nothing. (In fact, the United States lost, economically, even though it won the war: it was left with an enormous national debt, augmented by the grotesquely futile policy of supporting former allies and enemies to this day.) Yet it is capitalism that today's peace-lovers oppose and statism that they advocate-in the name of peace.

[Ibid., 37.]

The human characteristic required by statism is docility, which is the product of hopelessness and intellectual stagnation. Thinking men cannot be ruled; ambitious men do not stagnate.

["Tax-Credits for Education," ARL, I, 12, 1.]

The first choice-and the only one that matters-is: freedom or dictators.h.i.+p, capitalism or statism.

That is the choice which today's political leaders are determined to evade. The "liberals" are trying to put statism over by steahh-statism of a semi-socialist, semi-fascist kind-without letting the country realize what road they are taking to what ultimate goal. And while such a policy is reprehensible, there is something more reprehensible still: the policy of the "conservatives," who are trying to defend freedom by stealth.

["Conservatism: An Obituary," CUI. 193.]

The statists' epistemological method consists of endless debates about single, concrete, out-of-context, range-of-the-moment issues, never allowing them to be integrated into a sum, never referring to basic principles or ultimate consequences-and thus inducing a state of intellectual disintegration in their followers. The purpose of that verbal fog is to conceal the evasion of two fundamentals: (a) that production and prosperity are the product of men's intelligence, and (b) that government power is the power of coercion by physical force.

Once these two facts are acknowledged, the conclusion to be drawn is inevitable: that intelligence does not work under coercion, that man's mind will not function at the point of a gun.

["Let Us Alone!" CUI. 141.]

See also ALTRUISM; CAPITALISM; COLLECTIVISM; COMMUNISM; "CONSERVATIVES"; DICTATORs.h.i.+P; FASCISM/n.a.z.iSM; GOVERNMENT; INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS; INDIVIDUALISM; INTERVENTIONISM (ECONOMIC); "LIBERALS"; PHYSICAL FORCE; TRIBALISM; TYRANNY; WAR; WELFARE STATE.

"Stolen Concept," Fallacy of. The "stolen concept" fallacy, first identified by Ayn Rand, is the fallacy of using a concept while denying the validity of its genetic roots, i.e., of an earlier concept(s) on which it logically depends.

[Leonard Peikoff, editor's footnote to Ayn Rand's "Philosophical Detection," PWNI, 26; pb 22.]

As they feed on stolen wealth in body, so they feed on stolen concepts in mind, and proclaim that honesty consists of refusing to know that one is stealing. As they use effects while denying causes, so they use our concepts while denying the roots and the existence of the concepts they are using.

[GS, FNI, 191; pb 154.]

When modern philosophers declare that axioms are a matter of arbitrary choice, and proceed to choose complex, derivative concepts as the alleged axioms of their alleged reasoning, one can observe that their statements imply and depend on "existence," "consciousness," "ident.i.ty," which they profess to negate, but which are smuggled into their arguments in the form of unacknowledged. "stolen" concepts.

[ITOE, 79.].

They proclaim that there are no ent.i.ties, that nothing exists but motion, and blank out the fact that motion presupposes the thing which moves, that without the concept of ent.i.ty, there can be no such concept as "motion."

... They proclaim that there is no law of ident.i.ty, that nothing exists but change, and blank out the fact that change presupposes the concepts of what changes, from what and to what, that without the law of ident.i.ty no such concept as "change" is possible.

... "You cannot prove that you exist or that you're conscious," they chatter, blanking out the fact that proof presupposes existence, consciousness and a complex chain of knowledge: the existence of something to know, of a consciousness able to know it, and of a knowledge that has learned to distinguish between such concepts as the proved and the unproved.

[GS, FNI, 191; pb 154.]

The arguments of those who attack the senses are merely variants of the fallacy of the "stolen concept."

[ITOE, 4.].

Observe that Descartes starts his system by using "error" and its synonyms or derivatives as "stolen concepts."

Men have been wrong, and therefore, he implies, they can never know what is right. But if they cannot, how did they ever discover that they were wrong? How can one form such concepts as "mistake" or "error" while wholly ignorant of what is correct? "Error" signifies a departure from truth; the concept of "error" logically presupposes that one has already grasped some truth. If truth were unknowable, as Descartes implies, the idea of a departure from it would be meaningless.

The same point applies to concepts denoting specific forms of error. If we cannot ever be certain that an argument is logically valid, if validity is unknowable, then the concept of "invalid" reasoning is impossible to reach or apply. If we cannot ever know that a man is sane, then the concept of "insanity" is impossible to form or define. If we cannot recognize the state of being awake, then we cannot recognize or conceptualize a state of not being awake (such as dreaming). If man cannot grasp X, then "non-X" stands for nothing.

[Leonard Peikoff, " 'Maybe You're Wrong,' " TOF, April 1981, 9.]

Particularly since Kant, the philosophical technique of concept stealing, of attempting to negate reason by means of reason, has become a general bromide, a gimmick worn transparently thin.

[ITOE, 81.].

See also AXIOMATIC CONCEPTS; AXIOMS; CONCEPTS; HIERARCHY of KNOWLEDGE; INVALID CONCEPTS; KANT, IMMANUEL; LOGIC; PERCEPTION; TRUTH.

Style. "Style" is a particular, distinctive or characteristic mode of execution.

["Art and Sense of Life," RM, 51; pb 40.]

Two distinct, but interrelated, elements of a work of art are the crucial means of projecting its sense of life: the subject and the style-what an artist chooses to present and how he presents it.

The subject of an art work expresses a view of man's existence, while the style expresses a view of man's consciousness. The subject reveals an artist's metaphysics, the style reveals his psycho-epistemology....

The theme of an art work is the link uniting its subject and its style. "Style" is a particular, distinctive or characteristic mode of execution. An artist's style is the product of his own psycho-epistemology-and, by implication, a projection of his view of man's consciousness, of its efficacy or impotence, of its proper method and level of functioning.

Predominantly (though not exclusively), a man whose normal mental state is a state of full focus, will create and respond to a style of radiant clarity and ruthless precision-a style that projects sharp outlines, cleanliness, purpose, an intransigent commitment to full awareness and clear-cut ident.i.ty-a level of awareness appropriate to a universe where A is A, where everything is open to man's consciousness and demands its constant functioning.

A man who is moved by the fog of his feelings and spends most of his time out of focus will create and respond to a style of blurred, "mysterious" murk, where outlines dissolve and ent.i.ties flow into one another, where words connote anything and denote nothing, where colors float without objects, and objects float without weight-a level of awareness appropriate to a universe where A can be any non-A one chooses, where nothing can be known with certainty and nothing much is demanded of one's consciousness.

Style is the most complex element of art, the most revealing and, often, the most baffling psychologically. The terrible inner conflicts from which artists suffer as much as (or, perhaps, more than) other men are magnified in their work. As an example: Salvador Dali, whose style projects the luminous clarity of a rational psycho-epistemology, while most (though not all) of his subjects project an irrational and revoltingly evil metaphysics. A similar, but less offensive, conflict may be seen in the paintings of Vermeer, who combines a brilliant clarity of style with the bleak metaphysics of Naturalism. At the other extreme of the stylistic continuum, observe the deliberate blurring and visual distortions of the so-called "painterly" school, from Rembrandt on down-down to the rebellion against consciousness, expressed by a phenomenon such as Cubism which seeks specifically to disintegrate man's consciousness by painting objects as man does not perceive them (from several perspectives at once).

A writer's style may project a blend of reason and pa.s.sionate emotion (Victor Hugo)-or a chaos of floating abstractions, of emotions cut off from reality (Thomas Wolfe)-or the dry, bare, concrete-bound, humor-tinged raucousness of an intelligent reporter (Sinclair Lewis)-or the disciplined, perceptive, lucid, yet muted understatement of a represser (John O'Hara)-or the carefully superficial, over-detailed precision of an amoralist (Flaubert)-or the mannered artificiality of a second-hander (several moderns not worthy of mention).

Style conveys what may be called a "psycho-epistemological sense of life," i.e., an expression of that level of mental functioning on which the artist feels most at home. This is the reason why style is crucially important in art-both to the artist and to the reader or viewer-and why its importance is experienced as a profoundly personal matter. To the artist, it is an expression, to the reader or viewer a confirmation, of his own consciousness-which means: of his efficacy-which means: of his self-esteem (or pseudo-self-esteem).

[Ibid., 50; pb 40.]

Style is not an end in itself, it is only a means to an end-the means of telling a story. The writer who develops a beautiful style, but has nothing to say, represents a kind of arrested esthetic development; he is like a pianist who acquires a brilliant technique by playing finger-exercises, but never gives a concert.

The typical literary product of such writers-and of their imitators, who possess no style-are so-called "mood-studies," popular among today's literati, which are little pieces conveying nothing but a certain mood. Such pieces are not an art-form, they are merely finger-exercises that never develop into art.

["Basic Principles of Literature," RM, 78; pb 96.]

See also ART; FOCUS; IDENt.i.tY; METAPHYSICS; PSYCHO-EPISTEMOLOGY; SENSE of LIFE; STYLIZATION; SUBJECT (in ART).

Stylization. "Stylized" means condensed to essential characteristics, which are chosen according to an artist's view of man.

["Art and Cognition," RM, pb 67.]

An artist does not fake reality-he stylizes it. He selects those aspects of existence which he regards as metaphysically significant-and by isolating and stressing them, by omitting the insignificant and accidental, he presents his view of existence. His concepts are not divorced from the facts of reality-they are concepts which integrate the facts and his metaphysical evaluation of the facts.

["Art and Sense of Life," RM, 46; pb 36.]

The dance is the silent partner of music and partic.i.p.ates in a division of labor: music presents a stylized version of man's consciousness in action-the dance presents a stylized version of man's body in action.

["Art and Cognition," RM, pb 66.]

See also ART; DANCE; METAPHYSICAL VALUE-JUDGMENTS; PAINTING; STYLE.

Subconscious. Your subconscious is like a computer-more complex a computer than men can build-and its main function is the integration of your ideas. Who programs it? Your conscious mind. If you default, if you don't reach any firm convictions, your subconscious is programmed by chance-and you deliver yourself into the power of ideas you do not know you have accepted. But one way or the other, your computer gives you print-outs, daily and hourly, in the form of emotions-which are lightning-like estimates of the things around you, calculated according to your values. If you programmed your computer by conscious thinking, you know the nature of your values and emotions. If you didn't, you don't.

Many people, particularly today, claim that man cannot live by logic alone, that there's the emotional element of his nature to consider, and that they rely on the guidance of their emotions. Well, ... the joke is on ... them: man's values and emotions are determined by his fundamental view of life. The ultimate programmer of his subconscious is philosophy -the science which, according to the emotionalists, is impotent to affect or penetrate the murky mysteries of their feelings.

The quality of a computer's output is determined by the quality of its input. If your subconscious is programmed by chance, its output will have a corresponding character. You have probably heard the computer operators' eloquent term "gigo"-which means: "Garbage in, garbage out." The same formula applies to the relations.h.i.+p between a man's thinking and his emotions.

A man who is run by emotions is like a man who is run by a computer whose print-outs he cannot read. He does not know whether its programming is true or false, right or wrong, whether it's set to lead him to success or destruction, whether it serves his goals or those of some evil, unknowable power. He is blind on two fronts: blind to the world around him and to his own inner world, unable to grasp reality or his own motives, and he is in chronic terror of both. Emotions are not tools of cognition. The men who are not interested in philosophy need it most urgently: they are most helplessly in its power.

["Philosophy: Who Needs It," PWNI, 7; pb 5.]

The subconscious is an integrating mechanism. Man's conscious mind observes and establishes connections among his experiences; the subconscious integrates the connections and makes them become automatic. For example, the skill of walking is acquired, after many faltering attempts, by the automatization of countless connections controlling muscular movements; once he learns to walk, a child needs no conscious awareness of such problems as posture, balance, length of step, etc.-the mere decision to walk brings the integrated total into his control.

A mind's cognitive development involves a continual process of automatization. For example, you cannot perceive a table as an infant perceives it-as a mysterious object with four legs. You perceive it as a table, i.e., a man-made piece of furniture, serving a certain purpose belonging to a human habitation, etc.; you cannot separate these attributes from your sight of the table, you experience it as a single, indivisible percept-yet all you see is a four-legged object; the rest is an automatized integration of a vast amount of conceptual knowledge which, at one time, you had to learn bit by bit. The same is true of everything you perceive or experience; as an adult, you cannot perceive or experience in a vacuum, you do it in a certain automatized context- and the efficiency of your mental operations depends on the kind of context your subconscious has automatized.

"Learning to speak is a process of automatizing the use (i.e., the meaning and the application) of concepts. And more: all learning involves a process of automatizing, i.e., of first acquiring knowledge by fully conscious, focused attention and observation, then of establis.h.i.+ng mental connections which make that knowledge automatic (instantly available as a context), thus freeing man's mind to pursue further, more complex knowledge." (Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.) The process of forming, integrating and using concepts is not an automatic, but a volitional process-i.e., a process which uses both new and automatized material, but which is directed volitionally. It is not an innate, but an acquired skill; it has to be learned-it is the most crucially important part of learning-and all of man's other capacities depend on how well or how badly he learns it.

This skill does not pertain to the particular content of a man's knowledge at any given age, but to the method by which he acquires and organizes knowledge-the method by which his mind deals with its content. The method programs his subconscious computer, determining how efficiently, lamely or disastrously his cognitive processes will function. The programming of a man's subconscious consists of the kind of cognitive habits he acquires; these habits const.i.tute his psycho-epistemology.

It is a child's early experiences, observations and subverbal conclusions that determine this programming. Thereafter, the interaction of content and method establishes a certain reciprocity: the method of acquiring knowledge affects its content, which affects the further development of the method, and so on.

["The Comprachicos," NL, 192.]