:: Friday, October 27, 2006 ::
Objectivists and Politics
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Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 7:01 AM
Yes, I've read Leonard Peikoff's latest on the election, and I've read Robert W. Tracinski's sundry articles on it as well. I side with Peikoff on his larger point about the nature of the right these days, but I do not support the manner which he used to make his argument, which was weak at best. The parties do a lot to camouflage their agendas, and it does not follow that a person is ignorant of the role of philosophy in man's life to be taken in by it—but only to a point.
Getting that out of the way, I do not understand why some Objectivists get tied up in knots over general elections. If we had a parliamentary system of government, it would pay to care about elections, if only to place a dissenting voice in the government. But under our "winner take all" system, our vote is only worth the chance that it can swing an election. In most cases, that isn't much of a chance.
Furthermore, there will always be two parties in our system, and until we grow our numbers sufficient to set the national agenda, these parties will be unworthy of much support. We deserve a rational government--and nothing less, and thus I refuse to tolerate the current machinations of partisans from either party. If they want to support me on a single-issue project, fine, and if they propose a rational policy, I'll support it in turn--but nothing more.
And this is not to say that there aren't important evaluations that need to be made about which forces in our culture are the more present threat--but only as a means to determine what topics we talk about when we offer Objectivism as the alternative. My view is that while the religious pitchmen who come to my door look more like CEO's and less like they live under a bridge (in contrast to many of the leftists I run into), they are the deeper threat. If the skeptic-bound, nihilistic left seeks to hijack science in the name of environmentalism, the religious-bound right seeks to abandon it outright whenever it infringes upon its mystical creed--and it does so under the ostensive mantel of individualism, laissez-faire and concern for morality. That's unacceptable. It is taking away people who should side with us.
Lastly, I'll simply note my disagreement with Objectivists who have criticized efforts to confront the courts. I think the courts are the one branch of government where presenting Objectivist ideas creates a practical voice of dissent--given a consistent stream of arguments on the legal questions of the day. In my experience, there's no negative side to presenting principled arguments before a serious forum.
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