Check out this picture from the Kyiv Museum of Microminiatures. Along with microscope-aided viewings of fleas shod in golden horseshoes, and roses carved inside grains of rice, there was this portrait of Lenin composed of his entire published works in tiny fonts of varying shades of grey. With the supplied magnifying glasses, you could just barely make out the shape of the words and possibly read a few sentences if you focused really, really hard with an unwavering concentration. This is sort of the way that philosophy has come to be practiced.

When I was first in college, I wanted to get a minor in philosophy. There were only just enough free electives in my undergraduate engineering program to do it if I loaded up on all the classes I could fit into my schedule, but I was determined. I had read Plato's Republic and bits of Durant's The Story of Philosophy during the summer before my freshman year, and I completed a Practical Logic course and a Medieval Philosophy course in my first year (though only just barely on that last one), which filled in my basic requirements. I was really excited then to finally qualify for a more senior level course in contemporary analytical philosophy. I remember thinking about how many holes that I, as an uneducated kid, had poked in the theories of Plato and Augustine and Anselm and Aquinas, and I couldn't wait to see what the field had figured out over the 1,000 years since that time. I don't remember exactly what I found in that course, but it must have been something like this:

How are we to adjudicate among rival ontologies? Certainly the answer is not provided by the semantical formula "To be is to be the value of a variable"; this formula serves rather, conversely, in testing the conformity of a given remark or doctrine to a prior ontological standard. —W.V.O. Quine

I dropped the class after a few weeks, abandoned my plans for a minor in philosophy, and began taking other electives from a wide range of fields. What I didn't know then (but have since discovered on my own) was just how much philosophy had turned in on itself once the is-ought stumbling block that Hume had outlined became accepted as unbridgeable. With facts and values separated, science took over the discovery of facts, and artists and religions kept up their endless debates on values. These so called Two Cultures of C.P. Snow came to be watched from the sideline by a philosophy that had once ruled them both. I wrote about the creation of this seat on the bench when I chronicled the formulation of Analytic Philosophy by Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Now it's time for a quick look into what that school has produced. Certainly it has given us a more precise understanding of words, logic, and argumentation, but that to me is merely a better magnifying glass in the picture above—a useful instrument for reading, but not the great content of reading itself. In this series on the survival of the fittest philosophers, the next two entrants are probably the high points of analytical philosophy, and since they opposed one another with their subset schools of thought, I thought it would be best to consider them together. (And since it is" just" analytical philosophy, I thought it would be best to get this over with quickly as well.)

A.J. Ayer "was only 24 when he wrote the book that made his philosophical name, Language, Truth, and Logic, published in 1936. In it he put forward what were understood to be the major theses of Logical Positivism, and so established himself as that movement's leading English representative." W.V.O Quine "worked in theoretical philosophy and in logic. In practical philosophy—ethics and political philosophy—his contributions are negligible. He is perhaps best known for his arguments against Logical Positivism (in particular, its use of the analytic-synthetic distinction)." Here is what I wrote about these two in my evolutionary philosophy.

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Alfred Ayer (1910-1989 CE) was a British philosopher known for his promotion of logical positivism.

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Needs to Adapt
Logical positivism is a school of philosophy that combines empiricism – the idea that observational evidence is indispensable for knowledge of the world – with a version of rationalism incorporating mathematical and logical-linguistic constructs and deductions in epistemology. The doctrines included the opposition to all metaphysics, especially ontology and synthetic a priori propositions; the rejection of metaphysics not as wrong but as having no meaning; the idea that all knowledge should be codifiable by a single standard language of science; and above all the project of rational reconstruction, in which ordinary-language concepts were gradually to be replaced by more precise equivalents in that standard language. It is correct to reject a priori propositions, but metaphysics is cosmology plus ontology. Philosophers can play a role in looking at the scientific findings of cosmology and helping us interpret what that means for our ontological definitions of what it means to be human. Languages already contain definitions that can be made perfectly clear. The search for a single standard language of science is uselessly duplicative.

Gone Extinct
Ayer believed in the viewpoint he shared with the logical positivists: that large parts of what was traditionally called philosophy - including the whole of metaphysics, theology, and aesthetics - were not matters that could be judged as being true or false and that it was thus meaningless to discuss them. Our knowledge is limited and probabilistic. It does not mean we should not discuss what we do not know with 100% certainty. In fact, those items need much discussion to help us come to grips with our level of uncertainty about them.


Willard Quine (1908-2000 CE) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition. A recent poll conducted among analytic philosophers named Quine one of the five most important philosophers of the past two centuries, although the bulk of his writing was in technical areas of philosophy.

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By the 1960s, Quine had worked out his "naturalized epistemology" whose aim was to answer all substantive questions of knowledge and meaning using the methods and tools of the natural sciences. Quine roundly rejected the notion that there should be a "first philosophy," a theoretical standpoint somehow prior to natural science and capable of justifying it. These views are intrinsic to his naturalism. (Metaphysical naturalism holds that there is nothing but natural things, forces, and causes, of the kind studied by the natural sciences.) Yes. Philosophy must work together with the natural sciences to gather and organize our knowledge. They support one another.

Quine falls squarely into the analytic philosophy tradition while also being the main proponent of the view that philosophy is not conceptual analysis. Conceptual analysis consists primarily in breaking down or analyzing concepts into their constituent parts in order to gain knowledge or a better understanding of a particular philosophical issue in which the concept is involved. For example, the problem of free will in philosophy involves various key concepts, including the concepts of freedom, moral responsibility, determinism, ability, and so on. The method of conceptual analysis tends to approach such a problem by breaking down the key concepts pertaining to the problem and seeing how they interact. Yes. Philosophy’s role is bigger than that.

Quine doubted the tenability of the distinction between "analytic" statements - those true simply by the meanings of their words, such as "All bachelors are unmarried" - and "synthetic" statements - those true or false by virtue of facts about the world, such as "There is a cat on the mat.” This distinction had been central to logical positivism. Although Quine's criticisms played a major role in the decline of logical positivism, he remained a verificationist, to the point of invoking verificationism to undermine the analytic-synthetic distinction. Quine's chief objection to analyticity is with the notion of synonymy (sameness of meaning) - a sentence being analytic just in the case that it substitutes a synonym for one "black" in a proposition like "All black things are black" (or any other logical truth). The objection to synonymy hinges upon the problem of collateral information. We intuitively feel that there is a distinction between "All unmarried men are bachelors" and "There have been black dogs," but a competent English speaker will assent to both sentences under all conditions since such speakers also have access to collateral information bearing on the historical existence of black dogs. Quine maintains that there is no distinction between universally known collateral information and conceptual or analytic truths. Yes. An important breakthrough for common sense in the study of logic and philosophy.

Quine's writings have led to the wide acceptance of instrumentalism in the philosophy of science. In this sense, instrumentalism is the view that a scientific theory is a useful instrument in understanding the world. A concept or theory should be evaluated by how effectively it explains and predicts phenomena, as opposed to how accurately it describes objective reality. Yes. Predicting phenomena is the pragmatic best we can do. Common sense describes the action and appearance of phenomena as objective reality, but we cannot know what else we may someday discover about this reality to justify labeling our description as 100% objective.

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That's all then for this quick stop in one of the two main schools of contemporary philosophy. The meta-thought work of Analytical Philosophy has made us better at thinking about thinking, but I'd rather use that tool to develop my own theories than continue working on the tool itself. As I do so, tossing my pronouncements of judgment out against other theories along the way, it's important to remember these quotes:

There never comes a point where a theory can be said to be true. The most that one can claim for any theory is that it has shared the successes of all its rivals and that it has passed at least one test which they have failed. — A.J. Ayer

A colleague of the positivist philosopher A. J. Ayer once remarked wryly "I wish I was as certain of anything as he seems to be about everything".

Although...it will be hard not to be too certain about damning the Continental philosophers I'll discuss soon, when I bring this series to an end.

Two weeks ago I wrote about Jean Paul Sartre and mentioned his long on-again off-again relationship with Simone de Beauvoir. Sartre has written quite a lot of philosophy and literature worth commenting on, so I didn't focus on his personal life too much other than to say it was a detached one marked by a long and continuing decline in health—an existence that didn't add up to much of an essence. This week though, it's time to turn more attention to the Sartre-Beauvoir relationship as it was supposed to be a shining example of the proto-feminist's most important beliefs. Beauvoir once even declared that "whatever her many books and literary prizes, whatever her role in the women's movement or as an intellectual ambassador championing causes such as Algerian independence, her greatest achievement in life was her relationship with Sartre." Unfortunately, this was not a sound relationship.

Last week, we had our first woman in this series on the survival of the fittest philosophers--Ayn Rand. Sadly, and like so many other instances of women breaking through male dominated hierarchies, that one happened when a woman acted like a stereotypical man—selfishly and competitively, forsaking those who cooperate as "consigned to the status of sacrificial animals." Now, as I turn to the only other woman in this series, at least she appears on the surface to have been a vigorous supporter of women as equals. Beauvoir is most famous for her 1949 treatise The Second Sex, "a detailed analysis of women's oppression and a foundational tract of contemporary feminism." It is full of such quotes as:

When an individual (or a group of individuals) is kept in a situation of inferiority, the fact is that he is inferior. But the significance of the verb 'to be' must be rightly understood here; it is in bad faith to give it a static value when it really has the dynamic Hegelian sense of 'to have become.' Yes, women on the whole are today inferior to men; that is, their situation affords them fewer possibilities. The question is: should that state of affairs continue? Many men hope that it will continue; not all have given up the battle.

It is vain to apportion praise and blame. The truth is that if the vicious circle is so hard to break, it is because the two sexes are each the victim at once of the other and of itself. Between two adversaries confronting each other in their pure liberty, an agreement could be easily reached: the more so as the war profits neither. But the complexity of the whole affair derives from the fact that each camp is giving aid and comfort to the enemy; woman is pursuing a dream of submission, man a dream of identification. Want of authenticity does not pay: each blames the other for the unhappiness he or she has incurred in yielding to the temptations of the easy way; what man and woman loathe in each other is the shattering frustration of each one's own bad faith and baseness.

When we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy that it implies, then the 'division' of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form.

It was said that I refused to grant any value to the maternal instinct and to love. This was not so. I simply asked that women should experience them truthfully and freely, whereas they often use them as excuses and take refuge in them, only to find themselves imprisoned in that refuge when those emotions have dried up in their hearts.

These are admirable identifications of the plight women faced in the first half of the 20th century, but if you read a few of the biographies of Beauvoir, or just the stunning and salacious recap of them in the New Yorker article Stand By Your Man—which chronicles the numerous seductions of vulnerable young women into dependent, sexual, triangular relationships between the women, Sartre, and Beauvoir—one can't help but think that she didn't want to stop women from being slaves in relationships so much as she wanted to be the master in one herself. Sartre "liked the company of women because he devoted much of his time to the business of seducing them." But Beauvoir appears to have felt the same.

We were two of a kind, and our relationship would endure as long as we did: but it could not make up entirely for the fleeting riches to be had from encounters with different people.

I suppose that's one form of equality, but one that is still dedicated to inequality itself. In interviews, "Beauvoir had flatly denied having had sexual relations with women; in letters, she regularly described, for Sartre, her nights in bed with women. The correspondence was filled with catty and disparaging remarks about the people Beauvoir and Sartre were either sleeping with or trying to sleep with, even though, when they were with those people, they radiated interest and affection. They enjoyed, especially, recounting to each other the lies they were telling. Their customary method was to adopt a very young woman as a protégée—to take her to movies and cafés, travel with her, help her with her education and career, support her financially. For Sartre and Beauvoir, the feeling that they were, in effect, sleeping with their own children must, as with most taboos, have juiced up the erotic fun." There were trysts with 16 and 17-year-old students, initiated by Beauvoir. Sartre spent two years seducing one student's sister when the student wouldn't play with him. They encouraged sexual relationships with other partners of ex-partners within this "family." The nihilist existentialists turned to mere hedonistic games to occupy their time on earth.

This reminds me of a movie I watched this week--The Great Beauty. It is a near-universally praised film (91% score on Rotten Tomatoes) that is so shallow its only claim to depth is that the protagonist will occasionally glance at all the bacchanalia of Rome's pseudo-intellectuals and give it a wry and knowing smile as if to wink at the audience about how very shallow it all is, only to have a mafioso criminal comment at the end that its because of men like him that the whole world keeps running. It all overwhelms me with sadness at the waste that relativism and nihilism has wrought on those who have the opportunity to be some of humanity's best examples. The wealthy, famous, and intelligent have so often squandered their lives on meaningless sex.

This backdrop also lends some context to one of Beauvoir's other famous works, the novel All Men are Mortal. This is a book where the main protagonist, a man who was born immortal for no apparent reason in 1279, has come to lie immobile for weeks on end in a deck chair by a pool because after six centuries of existence wrapped up in some of the most important events in history he has given up all hope for humanity. By the end of the novel, I was screaming out in my head, "he is so alone because he is the only immortal!" Knowing more now about Beauvoir's relationship with Sartre and the way they treated others as playthings, it's no wonder she spent 400 pages expressing deep feelings of isolation and disgust.

Still, when trying to break a custom, an overreaction sometimes brings about a new normal, and Beauvoir's words did launch the second wave of feminism in the 60's and 70's. Her actions may not be my idea of finding powerful empowerment, but at least the words she used to justify her actions have helped others find a better way to change themselves and society.

I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth — and truth rewarded me.

Self-knowledge is no guarantee of happiness, but it is on the side of happiness and can supply the courage to fight for it.

One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion.

If it came to be that each man did what he must, existence would be saved in each one without there being any need of dreaming of a paradise where all would be reconciled in death.

Good words. So let's not harp on Beauvoir's personal failings any longer. Let's finish this week's essay with a reminder of what she helped bring to society, and then go celebrate with the other equal halves in your life, no matter what sex they are.

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Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986 CE) was a French writer, existentialist philosopher, feminist, and social theorist. She did not consider herself a philosopher but her significant contributions to existentialism and feminist existentialism have solidified her legacy as a philosopher and feminist.

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As an existentialist, Beauvoir believed that existence precedes essence; hence one is not born a woman, but becomes one. Beauvoir asserted that women are as capable of choice as men, and thus can choose to elevate themselves, moving beyond the immanence to which they were previously resigned and reaching transcendence, a position in which one takes responsibility for oneself and the world, where one chooses one's freedom. Certainly, Beauvoir was born a woman biologically, but the sense of the word she is getting at is a fully realized human. Beauvoir’s ideas are a good reminder that women are equal partners in the cooperative society we must build. Women should never be subjugated by force because their bodies are weaker than men’s, nor have their lives subjugated by children because they are the biological home for their gestation. Women and men must play equal roles in society and in the family.

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I once loved Ayn Rand. There, I said it. It feels good to get that off my chest. I read Atlas Shrugged and I wanted to make lots of money as proof I was valuable to other men. I wanted to be an engine that drove the world forward, and not waste time with notions of service to the less fortunate. I read The Selfish Gene and I thought biology actually justified these beliefs. I dove deeper and read The Fountainhead, and The Romantic Manifesto, and I wanted to write both philosophy that explained my beliefs, as well as novels filled with inspiring speeches from characters that argued for those beliefs. I didn't agree with everything she said—which was why I needed to write what I had to say—but reading Ayn Rand put me on this path to author / philosopher more than anyone else I've come across.

Then I went to business school to get my MBA, and the first words I heard in class were "the purpose of a business is to make money." We learned that in order to compete and survive in the business world, you must grow more than your rivals—you have to leverage debt as far as your income will allow so you can buy more advantages over others who are trying to steal your customers. We learned that competition was good—it rooted out waste in the system and freed resources for those who could do it better, faster, and cheaper. Cooperation was collusion and it was illegal. If you weren't doing everything you could to maximize profits, you were failing your fiduciary responsibility and you could be held liable for a breach of trust in running a public company. This was the dream world of Ayn Rand's thoughts taken to their fullest extent. And it was all wrong.

You had to take electives with a dozen crunchy granola types to learn about limits to growth and The Ecology of Commerce. You had to seek out indie documentaries about The Corporation to see why its behavior mimicked those of psychopaths. You had to go visit small, local businesses to find Companies that Choose to Be Great Instead of Big. You had to read about The Jungle of unbridled capitalism at the turn of the 20th century that literally ground immigrants into dust. You had to listen to Joel Salatin talk about how our faster, fatter, bigger, cheaper food was a poor product of our mechanistic, Greco-Roman, western, reductionist, linear, fragmented, compartmentalized, disconnected, democratized, individualized, parts-oriented thought process.  And you had to read much more about evolution and biology to see the immense picture of life where truly selfish businessmen are a tiny but dangerous virus. Once I did all that though, Rand's rational self-interest became the most irrational thing I had heard. Now when I read her thoughts on capitalism and ethics, she sounds like a two year old throwing a temper tantrum. Me, me, me, me!

Businessmen are the one group that distinguishes capitalism and the American way of life from the totalitarian statism that is swallowing the rest of the world. All the other social groups—workers, farmers, professional men, scientists, soldiers—exist under dictatorships, even though they exist in chains, in terror, in misery, and in progressive self-destruction. But there is no such group as businessmen under a dictatorship. Their place is taken by armed thugs: by bureaucrats and commissars. Businessmen are the symbol of a free society—the symbol of America.

America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes.

What do you do when a puppy insists on taking food off your plate? You use a physical barrier of some sort to stop its selfish instincts. What must you do with dogs to get them used to playing well with others, learning to read body language, and respecting the wishes of others? You socialise them. Do you give toddlers freedom to take whatever they want? What is one of the main benefits to children of public schooling vs. home schooling? The opportunity to have one's social skills corrected by a group of peers. Is any of this any different than the way we should treat billionaires or other Ayn-Rand-styled libertarian individualists who selfishly take for themselves to the detriment of societies, ecologies, and future generations? Ayn Rand talks a big game about the importance of "rational self-interest," but how rational is it to advocate a self as if it were an island? It might make no sense to compel cooperation with competitive wolves (and the Russian ones in her background at that), but the answer is not to become a lone wolf. Even actual wolves know this. The answer is to stop those mavericks from hurting the pack. Teach them about the African proverb "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." Working together is difficult, and it is always tempting to go fast and go alone, but that is a short path. Do the hard work of building consensus and cooperation about the right things to do. Future generations will thank you. As we thank those who have done so before us.

In a capitalist society, all human relationships are voluntary. Men are free to cooperate or not, to deal with one another or not, as their own individual judgments, convictions, and interests dictate.

Up to a point! When science and reason show a path to be harmful to others, then individuals are not free to follow their judgments or convictions down those paths. We recognize this universally with physical violence. Why do some not recognize it with fiscal, social, or environmental violence? This choice between the self and others can often be a difficult one, but we must remain committed to discussing the choice as a situationally dependent decision, not as one with a default answer in only one direction.

Remember also that the smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights, cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.

When the common good of a society is regarded as something apart from and superior to the individual good of its members, it means that the good of some men takes precedence over the good of others, with those others consigned to the status of sacrificial animals.

Yes! And we are animals. And we do make individual sacrifices for the rational benefit of others over the long-term. Ayn came from a country that literally sacrificed lives, but that isn't the only option available along the continuum of cooperation.

Capitalism has created the highest standard of living ever known on earth. The evidence is incontrovertible. The contrast between West and East Berlin is the latest demonstration, like a laboratory experiment for all to see. Yet those who are loudest in proclaiming their desire to eliminate poverty are loudest in denouncing capitalism. Man’s well-being is not their goal.

The same can now be said of socialism over capitalism. The evidence on all the important metrics shows the Scandinavian, New Zealand, Canadian, and Japanese models all outperform the United States. This is what is now incontrovertible. Will any of Ayn Rand's acolytes follow her emphasis on reason and accept this fact? It's unlikely, since that would fly in the face of their own personal gain. My how subjective the facts can be for an objectivist. Let's get on with my analysis of Rand and her survival among the fittest philosophers before I turn this diatribe into a John Galt's speech.

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Ayn Rand (1905-1982 CE) was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism. She continues to have a popular following, as well as a growing influence among scholars and academics. Rand’s political ideas have been especially influential among libertarians and conservatives. In 1991, a survey asked Book-of-the-Month club members what the most influential book in the respondent's life was. After the Bible, Rand's Atlas Shrugged was the second most popular choice.

Survives
In metaphysics, Rand supported philosophical realism and atheism, and opposed anything she regarded as mysticism or supernaturalism. Rejecting faith as antithetical to reason, Rand rejected organized religion. Yes. Nice to see this surviving among philosophers.

In epistemology, she considered all knowledge to be based on sense perception, the validity of which she considered axiomatic, and reason, which she described as "the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses.” She rejected all claims of non-perceptual or a priori knowledge, including instinct, intuition, revelation, or any form of just knowing. Yes. Keeping alive this great tradition.

Needs to Adapt
Rand's aesthetics defined art as a "selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments.” According to Rand, art allows philosophical concepts to be presented in a concrete form that can be easily grasped, thereby fulfilling a need of human consciousness. As a writer, the art form Rand focused on most closely was literature, where she considered Romanticism to be the approach that most accurately reflected the existence of human free will. She described her own approach to literature as "romantic realism.” A very robust definition of art and description of its purpose. Unfortunately, Rand’s particular metaphysical value judgments were flawed, as we will see below. Also, her view of romanticism that called on artists to inspire the world with only positive examples of mankind removes the half of art that inspires the world through portraits of what it has done wrong. To find the right path in life, we must understand both sides of good and evil, we must be able to motivate ourselves using both attraction and avoidance.

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In ethics, Rand argued for rational egoism (rational self-interest), as the guiding moral principle. She said the individual should "exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself.” She referred to egoism as "the virtue of selfishness" in her book of that title, in which she presented her solution to the is-ought problem by describing a meta-ethical theory that based morality in the needs of "man's survival qua man.” Rand ignores the evolution of the individual within the species, and the evolution of the species within life in general. The is-ought problem is solved by life’s survival qua life. This implies a completely different set of ethics revolving around the long-term balance of competition and cooperation.

Rand's political views, reflected in both her fiction and her theoretical work, emphasize individual rights (including property rights) and laissez-faire capitalism, enforced by a constitutionally limited government. She was a fierce opponent of all forms of collectivism and statism, including fascism, communism, socialism, and the welfare state, and she promoted ethical egoism while rejecting the ethic of altruism. Rand rightly rejected the fascism, communism, and socialism she grew up with. At best, they were corrupt attempts at creating societies where 100% cooperation was the goal. At worst, they were brutal dictatorships murdering and stealing from their citizens for their own selfish benefit. Her confused response of advocating extreme competition and freedom from all state control or social support was running in the right direction but going much too far. The answer is in the middle, balancing cooperation with competition and designing the state, the economy, and society in such a way as to optimize this balance.

She remarked that in the history of philosophy she could only recommend "three A's - Aristotle, Aquinas, and Ayn Rand.” Among the philosophers Rand held in particular disdain was Immanuel Kant, whom she referred to as a "monster" and "the most evil man in history.” Rand was strongly opposed to the view that reason is unable to know reality "as it is in itself," which she ascribed to Kant. She considered her philosophy to be the "exact opposite" of Kant's on "every fundamental issue.” Objectivist philosophers George Walsh and Fred Seddon both argue that Rand misinterpreted Kant. In particular, Walsh argues that both philosophers adhere to many of the same basic positions, and that Rand exaggerated her differences with Kant. Walsh says that for many critics, Rand's writing on Kant is "ignorant and unworthy of discussion.” More evidence of Rand’s lazy reasoning. Aquinas should have been quite an object of scorn for Rand, and she clearly misunderstood Kant. If you want to create an enduring philosophical system, you must do your homework...
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Rand started from a rational place, but her experience and education didn't take her rationales far enough. She and her followers have caused much suffering in the world because of this, with their callous insistence on policies that drive ever higher income inequalities. Should we cut Rand some slack on this? Her own words would suggest not.

Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent.

But even the most guilty were once innocent. Taking a longer term view of any crime, we see the genes and cultures that heavily influenced the criminal, and we can resolve to correct the systemic imbalances that may have led to the eventual harm. This type of pity isn't soft on crime, it's focused on preventing future harm to both victims and perpetrators. A brief biography of Rand's early years in Russia easily explains the longer term reasons why she came to her position.

From a young age, "Rand found school unchallenging, and said she began writing screenplays at the age of eight and novels at the age of ten. At the prestigious Stoiunina Gymnasium, her closest friend was Vladimir Nabokov's younger sister, Olga. The two girls shared an intense interest in politics and would engage in debates: while Nabokova defended constitutional monarchy, Rand supported republican ideals. She was twelve at the time of the February Revolution of 1917, during which she favored Alexander Kerensky over Tsar Nicholas II. The subsequent October Revolution and the rule of the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin disrupted the comfortable life the family had previously enjoyed. Her father’s business was confiscated and the family displaced. They fled to the Crimean Peninsula, which was initially under control of the White Army during the Russian Civil War. After graduating from high school in the Crimea at 16, Rand returned with her family to Petrograd (as Saint Petersburg was renamed at that time), where they faced desperate conditions, on occasion nearly starving. After the Russian Revolution, universities were opened to women, allowing Rand to be in the first group of women to enroll at Petrograd State University, where, at the age of only 16, she began her studies in the department of social pedagogy, majoring in history. Along with many other "bourgeois" students, Rand was purged from the university shortly before graduating. However, after complaints from a group of visiting foreign scientists, many of the purged students were allowed to complete their work and graduate, which Rand did in October 1924. In the fall of 1925, Rand was granted a visa to visit American relatives. She departed on January 17, 1926. When she arrived in New York City on February 19, 1926, she was so impressed with the skyline of Manhattan that she cried what she later called "tears of splendor" and resolved to stay in America."

Is it any wonder she ended up with a hatred and aversion to any form of collectivism? Still, begrudgingly, she acknowledged some role for others in her life.

I shall choose friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters. And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I shall love and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we shall join our hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire.

And likewise, I shall choose those aspects of Ayn Rand that please me—her purpose driven life, her atheism, her attempts to use reason—and walk away from the rest.