Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical by Chris Sciabarra Page B

In 1919, for instance, the philosopher and literary critic Georg Lukács actually declared that the dialectic is Marxism , and that even if research disproved each and every one of Marx’s individual theses, that would not detract from the veracity of his method. Just as Marx identified capitalism with dualism, Lukács identified Marxism with the dialectic. And as we have seen, liberal thinkers such as Karl Popper would agree. For Popper, what saves capitalism from tyrannyis its dependence on a “critical dualism” between facts and standards. Whereas Lukács sees the dialectic as the means by which theory becomes “a vehicle of revolution,” 1 Popper sees it as the methodological moment of political totalitarianism.
    Based on this identification of Marxism with dialectics , it may seem odd to view Objectivism partially in terms of its dialectical sensibility. Either Lukács’s identification is incorrect, or Ayn Rand was a Marxist. The former is far more likely. Rand affirmed the dialectical connection between critique and revolution, but her revolutionary credo is thoroughly non-Marxist. Marx did not have a monopoly on the dialectic. Aspects of this approach have been employed by many diverse thinkers, including Aristotle, Hegel, Marx, Lossky, and as I have documented, Ayn Rand. Peikoff recognizes correctly that such a relational view is not distinctive to Objectivism, even though it is a hallmark of the philosophy . 2
    By articulating the methodological elements of Objectivism, I have discovered a host of provocative intellectual links that previously went unnoticed. We can now view Objectivism in historical terms—not only as an heir to Aristotelianism, as Rand would have had it, but as a by-product of her Russian past. Objectivism is as much defined by what Rand accepted from the Russian cultural milieu as by what she rejected.
    What Rand accepted was the dialectical revolt against formal dualism. This dialectical method was at the heart of the Russian tendency toward synthesis . Such a tendency was endemic to Russian culture; it was expressed not only in the articulated statements of her teachers, but in the very intellectual air she breathed.
    What Rand rejected was the mystical and statist content of Russian philosophy and culture. On this basis, Rand built a philosophical edifice that was simultaneously integrated and secular, dialectical and capitalist. In Rand’s project, there is reciprocity in the interaction between content and method. Her method of processing the data of the world affected the content of her theories, while the content affected the further development of the method. In its critical, negative aspects, Rand’s Objectivism is a grand revolt against formal dualism in each of the major branches of philosophy and in each of the institutions of modern statism. In its revolutionary, positive aspects, Rand’s Objectivism is a grand projection of the ideal person and the ideal society—the autonomous, integrated individual and the benevolent human community. Neither moment can be abstracted from the other. Both constitute the historic essence of Objectivism.
    I characterize my approach as “ hermeneutical ” because the investigation of Objectivism should not merely reproduce Rand’s words, but produce further implications that neither Rand, nor her followers, nor her critics, nor Ihad foreseen. This proposition goes beyond Rand’s admission that the elaboration of her philosophy was a task that no one individual could finish in a lifetime (Rand [1976] 1992T). It goes beyond the validity of any of Rand’s philosophic formulations or critical commentary. It relates specifically to the task of Rand scholarship . In my own research, I have found that there is so much serious scholarly work that still needs to be done. In literary studies , an investigation is needed of the relationship between Nietzsche and Rand; the use of symbolism and mythological imagery in the Randian novel; and,