"Let me admonish you ... to go alone; to refuse the good models, even those which are sacred in the imagination of men, and dare to love God without mediator or veil." Emerson, An Address, Divinity College
Emerson, ever the wordsmith, stands high atop the lectern and declares for all these students of Divinity College to follow his word and go their own way. Is this a contradiction? These pupils must be admonished to refuse the words of their predecessors, excepting, of course, Emerson, whose ideal of the personal and only personal God discoverable by the courage of the individual subject ought to be followed. So long as they follow this ideal in their own way. There are certain themes I will write about after I guide you to consider this next quote:
"The purpose of man’s life . . . is to become an abject zombie who serves a purpose he does not know, for reasons he is not to question." Ayn Rand, John Galt's speech.
Alas-- the sacred and robust models of the imagination of men, for Rand, lead inevitably to one telos: that man is to become a mindless servant of an unquestionable goal. The irony is painful. While Rand accuses religion of putting individuals in the position of a clouded drone on a determined path, her philosophy offers very little else. She declares that 'there is an objective reality' and it's there and just trust her even if she can't precisely say what it is. She declares that one is to put Reason as superior to those middling, useless emotions, even if she cannot define it. Rand denies religion any intellectual force by declaring they subject people to undefinable, monstrous ideals and yet will commit the same farces with her pseudo-concepts of Reason and Reality. Objectivism will never be any different from Randianism for her enlightened mind accepts nothing less than submission.
So suppose one of these great thinkers admonishes you into finally going your own way. Now what? All paens to individualism and following one's own reason succumb to the same debauchle: they point fingers in the infinitely many directions of self-sovereignty but offer no guidance as to how to achieve it. They say "Do as you will", but you are still left with the questions "What do I will?" and "Is my own reasoning sound?". Last week, I went into my professor's office hours asking about a mathematical proof I did on a test. When I took the test, I believed I had everything down pat, but apparently my proof was not sound. He showed me a correct argument on the whiteboard. I looked at it, looked back at my test, looked at it again and realized that what I had in my hands was not a proof. But I believed I HAD it. Individual reason left to fester on its own is one of the poorest tools of no trade. We want to believe we are skilled at our swords, but we sit alone and whet it against our stone. We rarely practice using it; we rarely hone it against the talents of the Great. Yet, many declare we are capable enough, on our own, to handle this world and its endless wars and complexities. Metaphysical shops open up on street corners, proferring crystals and spells that are supposed to aid us in battle as if life were a Final Fantasy game, selling spiritual props by abusing the vagueness of their discourse and people's innocent belief that they are truly individuals who by the light of their own reason can tell that this rock here is going to supplement my virtuous soul. Individual reason often boils down to little more than repeating beliefs obsessively behind the veil of their skull, rationalizing passing deeds, or navigating practical scenarios. On the rare occassion one stumbles upon a true, immortal insight that goes beyond the limits of past reason and is able to demonstrate its accuracy on the world's stage, we are still loathe to consider it unless it jives with our worldview.
For Emerson, we are to stumble into the light of God on our own, but do not question the ultimate sovereignty of God for you will fail. For Rand, we must take up Reason as our ultimate token, but emotions, etc., that in any way impinge upon the might of Reason must be rejected. For both, we must believe in our individual reason above all, and eschew the false idols of our religions ideologies. But then what? Then we stumble on our own, empty egoists, zombies, slated to the path of originality, failing at every step, alone for there is no pride in relying on the necessary cane or the hand of a parallel friend.
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