The Three-Ring Circus of Satan: a review of eight books about LaVeyan Satanism

Jewish date:  14 Siwan 5772 (Parashath BeHa‘alothekha).


Today’s holidays:  Monday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Werner Klemperer (Church of the SubGenius).

The Three-Ring Circus of Satan:  a review of eight books about LaVeyan Satanism

by Aaron Solomon Adelman

I know the title sounds a bit like mockery, but the relevance will be revealed later on.

The books examined in this review are:

1)  The Satanic Bible by Anton Szandor LaVey (LaVey The Satanic Bible), describing the philosophy and basic rituals of LaVeyan Satanism (what LaVey claims as his lifelong belief system) and the Church of Satanism (founded April 30, 1966 by LaVey).

2)  The Satanic Rituals by Anton Szandor LaVey (LaVey The Satanic Rituals), which expands on LaVeyan Satanic rituals.

3)  The Satanic Witch by Anton Szandor LaVey (LaVey The Satanic Witch), an extending discourse on magic.

4, 5)  The Devil’s Notebook by Anton Szandor LaVey (LaVey The Devil’s Notebook) and Satan Speaks! by Anton Szando LaVey (LaVey Satan Speaks!), books of essays on various topics on LaVeyan Satanism and whatever else LaVey felt like writing about.

6)  The Secret Life of a Satanist by Blanche Barton (Barton), a biography of LaVey by his last wife.

7)  The Satanic Scriptures by Peter H. Gilmore (Gilmore), a book of essays by the current high priest of the Church of Satan.

8)  Satan Wants You by Arthur Lyons (Lyons), a history of various things called Satanism.

As LaVey is the founder of LaVeyan Satanism, with Barton and Gilmore merely following in his footsteps, this review will focus heavily on LaVey’s work.

Theology and moral philosophy:  Before actually discussing these books, it is imperative to note what these books are not.  The classical idea of Satanism is a paranoid Christian fantasy of the worship of Satan.  LaVeyan Satanism is not Satanism in the original sense.  Much like Ayn Rand (Rand The Virtue of Selfishness, a New Concept of Egoism. With Additional Articles by Nathaniel Branden; Rand Atlas Shrugged; Adelman "Faking Reality: A Moral Review of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged"), Anton Szandor LaVey is rebelling against Christianity—or rather his vision of Christianity—and taking a 180-degree turn.  The result, LaVeyan Satanism, is unconventional so far as traditional religion is concerned and strongly resembles Rand’s Objectivism on many points.

1) Like the theology of Objectivism, the theology of LaVeyan Satanism is atheistic without the least bit of proof.  While rejecting God in the Christian sense of the term (LaVey The Satanic Bible 40-43), he embraces another “god”:  himself (LaVey The Satanic Bible 44-45, 96).  LaVey believes that all people should treat themselves as their own deity, the exact religious equivalent of Objectivist selfishness.  This axiom forms the core of his personal morality.  LaVey has worked out a system of how to be selfish, not in an idiotically short-sighted fashion, but in an organized manner to bring one the most benefit and indulgence possible (LaVey The Satanic Bible 25).  This includes being compassionate and loving to those one considers worthy of compassion and love (LaVey The Satanic Bible 64), and there is also a variant on the golden rule:  “Do unto others as they do unto you” (LaVey The Satanic Bible 51).

2) LaVey sees those who annoy him as worthy of destruction.  He views religious people in general and Christians in particular as possessing even trait he despises; he sees them as a bunch of stupid, hypocritical doormats who hate life and pleasure, that are unjust, and that never create anything new or improve this world (LaVey The Satanic Bible 23, 25, 29-43, 46-52, 54-57, 61-65, 76-77, 82-86, 92-95, 110-11, 20, 35, 38-39; LaVey The Satanic Rituals 14, 17, 26-27, 31-35; LaVey The Devil’s Notebook 56, 84-88, 93-94).  Rand has essentially the same views about non-Objectivists.

3) LaVey does not preach to convert others to his moral system; rather he reaches out to those who already believe as he does.  The style of his writing is so insulting to those who do not agree with him that those who disagree are likely to quickly stop reading  Likewise, Rand insults those who do not agree with her and preaches to the choir in Atlas Shrugged.

4) Both LaVey and Rand are interested in recreating the world around them to their own liking.  Rand dreams of destroying the world to let the “superior” Objectivists taking over, while LaVey dreams of a stratified society with “superior” Satanists lording it over their “inferior” opponents.  LaVey also promotes the creation and usage of “artificial human companions”.

5) Both LaVey and Rand ground their moral systems in the naturalistic fallacy (LaVey The Satanic Bible 51).  Both contrast their systems repeatedly with other moral systems and religions—or rather their visions thereof.  Though while Rand cannot be bothered to name her opponents’ moral systems, LaVey harps frequently on Christianity.

Now, if this were all there were to LaVeyan Satanism, anyone reading this should be yawning.  A clone of Rand’s Objectivism naturally has all the problems of Objectivism, compounded with the fact that the clone is plagiarized.  However, what else there is to LaVeyan Satanism is anything but yawn-worthy.

Salesmanship:  Despite the logic behind it, being selfish, no matter under what name it goes, is not an honestly marketable philosophy.  Those who are not selfish usually have no interest in becoming selfish (or are unlikely to admit it), because people usually hate those who are selfish, and those who already are selfish have no need for someone to tell them how to be selfish and are unlikely to pay anyone for the privilege.  To make such a moral philosophy more salable, LaVey has wrapped up being selfish with other ideas that are easier to sell.  When people try to sell an ugly philosophy, they wrap it up in whatever righteousness and talent in their background they can.  Thus Ann Coulter, a lawyer, plays the lawyer to push extreme conservative paranoia (Adelman "Review of Godless: The Church of Liberalism by Ann Coulter"; Coulter); Richard Dawkins, a scientist, makes his claims of atheism in the name of science (Adelman "Delusional Victory:  A Review of Richard Dawkins’s the God Delusion"; Dawkins); Bill Maher, a comedian, pushes atheism by dredging up everything he finds ridiculous in religion (Adelman "Appeal to Ridicule: A Review of Bill Maher’s Religulous"; Charles); and Ben Stein, who wrote speeches for Richard Nixon, plays politics to defend creationism (Adelman "No Honesty Allowed: A Review of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"; Frankowski).  LaVey has a different background; he learned the art of showmanship in the circus and the carnival (Barton 29-43).  And so to the idea of selfishness LaVey adds the prestige of religion, controversy, and magic, and the result is the Church of Satan.

The prestige of religion:  While Rand dresses her moral system in the trappings of formal philosophy, LaVey dresses his in the trappings of religion.  Formal philosophy has never been popular.  It is an intellectual pursuit, one for which few people ever receive training.  Unlike science, formal philosophy has few, if any, people doing public relations to tell everyone that it a great and wonderful field.  In fact, even scientists, who are smart enough to understand philosophy, usually pay little attention to what philosophers have to say.  Religion, on the other hand, has a massive following, with the majority of humanity following a religion.  As a philosophy, Objectivism is something that elitist snobs follow.  As a religion, LaVeyan Satanism is something that more ordinary people can practice.  Furthermore, religion has the advantage that most countries at least pay lip service to freedom of religion.  An Objectivist cannot claim “freedom of philosophy” to act antisocially and get away with it.  But a LaVeyan Satanist can justify unusual behavior on the grounds of “freedom of religion” and get accommodation in the West, especially the United States.

Controversy:  Controversy is a great way to attract attention, and the more controversial, the better it works.  As such LaVey has created something deliberately controversial, and it is clear that the controversy is meant for attention and not the quest for actual knowledge, because LaVey has no interest in associating with anyone who will contradict him (LaVey Satan Speaks! 37-38)—something dangerous for anyone interested in knowledge above being right.  In all of the reviewed books, footnotes or specific references of any sort are rare.  A few verses from the Christian Bible are noted, and Arthur Lyons is especially nice in citing his sources when he quotes someone.  (Most of the LaVeyan Satanist literature seems to be propaganda.  Lyons seems to be thinking more academically.)  But for the most part, the books reviewed are littered with offense-inducing nontrivial claims.  For example:

1. “All religions of a spiritual nature are inventions of man” (LaVey The Satanic Bible 44).  (As noted before, no proof of invention of religions—or that atheism is correct, for that matter—is ever given.)
2. “Sexual activity certainly is condoned and encouraged by Satanism, but obviously the fact that it is the only religion which honestly takes this stand, is the reason it has been traditionally given so much literary space” (LaVey The Satanic Bible 85).  (No proof is given that Satanism is the only pro-sex religion.  Therefore any conclusion based on the unproven premise is premature.)
3. “Satanism does not sacrifice its god, as do other religions” (LaVey The Satanic Bible 138).  (Your reviewer is not aware of any religion sacrificing its god.  In many, if not most, religions, this is outright impossible, and it is difficult to imagine that if such an action were possible that it would be looked upon with favor except by a truly masochistic god.  The nearest your author is aware of is the crucifixion of Jesus, but this is a forced interpretation.)
4. “There is not a person on this earth who is completely devoid of ornamentation.” (LaVey The Satanic Bible 46)  (LaVey ignores the existence of nudists.)
5. “There has never been a great ‘love’ movement in the history of the world that hasn’t wound up killing countless numbers of people, we must assume, to prove how much they loved them!  Every hypocrite who ever walked the earth has had pockets buldging [sic] with love!” (LaVey The Satanic Bible 64).  (Sarcasm about the Nazis, Stalinists, and Maoists being full of love would be appropriate here.  Sarcasm about Flower Children massacring millions would also be appropriate.)
6. Attempts to link Jews and Zionists with Nazism (LaVey Satan Speaks! 20-22, 69-72; Barton 56-57), especially claims of cooperation between Zionists and Nazis during World War II (LaVey Satan Speaks! 70-71; Barton 57).  (Anyone who does not understand why this is a priori unbelievable and requires solid proof to be worthy of being taken seriously is incompetent with regard to logic and reason and has no business making arguments of any kind.)

Given the utility of controversy, The Satanic Bible is not merely an exposition on LaVey’s moral philosophy; it is also a rhetorical attack on religion in general and Christianity in particular.  (He claims, in contrast, that Satanism is an “un-religion” (LaVey The Satanic Bible 14).)  As noted above, he makes charges frequently of religion uniformly supporting a caricature of Christianity:  opposing pleasure in all forms, denying humanity’s animal nature and needs, and turning people into sheep—charges he never gives sources for.  LaVey also plays the antiquity card by claiming that Satanism existed before him (LaVey The Satanic Bible 171) and makes insinuations about people tried for witchcraft (LaVey The Satanic Bible 111), various evil historical figures (LaVey The Satanic Bible 104-05), Galileo Galilei and Leonardo da Vinci (LaVey The Satanic Rituals 32), the Illuminati (LaVey The Satanic Rituals 78), the Knights Templar (LaVey The Satanic Rituals 54-55), the Yezidis (LaVey The Satanic Rituals 54-55, 51-155), post-Christianization Russians (LaVey The Satanic Rituals 131-36), H. P. Lovecraft (LaVey The Satanic Rituals 175-79), the Jews (LaVey Satan Speaks! 20-22, 69-72), and practically any writer or artist he likes (LaVey Satan Speaks! 61, 64-65).  Given the sparse sourcing in LaVeyan Satanic literature and the fact that many of the alleged facts which LaVey presents are not blatantly obvious, any sensible reader should be (metaphorically) hearing alarm bells indicating that LaVey either does not care if anyone believes his version of history or not, so long as he gets the attention he needs to sell his books, or he is deliberately targeting the uncritical antireligious.

Note:  For the record, were LaVey still alive, he would be chewed out for his mischaracterization of religion by the unconventional Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, author of Kosher Sex (Boteach), who is unquestionably sex-positive.

Evil:  LaVey is not content to stir up controversy in claims about history and other people’s religions; how he frames his own religion is also deliberately controversial—and in a way which is a serious break with Rand.  Throughout LaVeyan Satanism books, “evil” is the term used for what LaVeyan Satanism stands for; in essence, to a LaVeyan Satanist, “evil” is the new “good”.  Strictly speaking, this is a huge terminological blunder.  “Good” is the term conventionally used for morally correct behavior, regardless of the moral system involved, and “evil” is used for morally incorrect behavior.  To use “evil” to denote what is morally correct is to sow confusion and controversy—exactly what LaVey wants.  LaVey also misidentifies his ideology with evil as defined in Christianity (or probably any other religion with a moral code), when in reality his “evil” is not identical with the Christian notion of evil (or the notion of evil propagated by probably any other religion with a moral code).  The Satanic Bible does not advocate murder,  rape,  theft (for the most part),  child abuse,  abortion,  slavery,  bestiality,  senseless or counterproductive cruelty,  or breaking the law.  Such dishonesty is apparently not sufficiently effective, as in the later Satan Speaks! he makes the blatantly outrageous claim of finding nothing wrong with the plan for world conquest laid out in the infamous forgery The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion (LaVey Satan Speaks! 71).

Symbolism:  Another publicity tactic in LaVeyan Satanism is the use of Satan as a symbol.  Now, it is perfectly possible to use an entity one does not truly believe in as a symbol.  E.g., in the 1939 MGM film The Wizard of Oz, the Tin Woodman sings, “I’d be friends with the sparrows / and the boy who shoots the arrows / if I only had a heart”, and no one seriously thinks that he is truly seeking a closer relationship with the Roman god Cupid or even believes that Cupid exists (Fleming).  But LaVey pushes symbolism to a new level.  Despite his claims of quasi-atheism, on practically every page of The Satanic Bible LaVey talks about Satan as if he were a real entity instead of merely a symbol of everything LaVey finds praiseworthy.  He also frequently makes use of God as a symbol for everything he finds detestable.  Taken out of context, much of the book could easily be interpreted as promoting the actual worship of the Christian Satan.  LaVey also has no qualms about using the alleged evil deities and quasi-deities of all religions in the same manner as and as virtual synonyms for his version of Satan (LaVey The Satanic Bible 56, 58-60, 145-46).  Such confusing and counter-conventional symbolism can only help to sow confusion and controversy.

Magic:  Anyone can be selfish or misuse words and symbols for free.  In order to get people to pay attention and buy his books, LaVey offers something no one else—not even Rand—can provide:  magic, not the tongue-in-cheek kind, but the kind that magicians only pretend that they do.  (It may be safely assumed that LaVey never was able to truly work magic, as he poorly rationalizes not using magic for the sorts of “minor” feats that would be expected in proper testing of magical efficacy (LaVey The Satanic Bible 121-22).)  Ritual in LaVeyan Satanism is not for worship, but rather is a method of creating the right emotional state so that the participants can use it to accomplish something in the real world (LaVey The Satanic Bible 111).  At the very least, LaVeyan ritual is supposed to provide an emotional release, but it also has magical aims, such as love spells and curses to cause the downfall of enemies.  The descriptions of how to perform magic are extensive and nontrivial—especially The Satanic Witch, which details how women may use magic to manipulate others for their own benefit—thus providing motivation for the selfish to buy LaVey’s books.

Recycling and plagiarism:  LaVey considers all rituals fantasy (LaVey The Satanic Rituals 15).  Since one fantasy is as good as another, logically one may use whatever fantasy one feels will accomplish the chosen task—any fantasy.  E.g., he cites the case of a wizard who quoted a poem of Rudyard Kipling for a spell (LaVey The Satanic Bible 143).  The Satanic Bible and The Satanic Rituals thus freely borrow (in reality or LaVey’s fantasy) from the Enochian Keys of the mystic John Dee (LaVey The Satanic Bible 153-272), the Black Mass (LaVey The Satanic Bible 99-105; LaVey The Satanic Rituals 31-53), The City of Dreadful Night by James Thomson (LaVey The Satanic Rituals 54-75; Thomson), pre-Christian Russian paganism (LaVey The Satanic Rituals 131-50), the Yezidi religion (LaVey The Satanic Rituals 151-72), The Island of Dr. Moreau by Jules Verne (LaVey The Satanic Rituals 76-105; Wells, chapter 12), bad science-fiction movies (LaVey The Satanic Rituals 106-30), and the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft (LaVey The Satanic Rituals 171-202; Lovecraft).  Recycling rituals serves to create an illusion of a Satanic history that never really existed, thus creating prestige among the uncritical, not to mention saving LaVey a lot of effort in composing rituals.  However, LaVey’s dishonesty is deeper than that.  The ritual borrowed from The Island of Dr. Moreau is done so without correct attribution; he claims the ritual was borrowed by Wells from the Illuminati (LaVey The Satanic Rituals 78).  Plagiarism is also not limited to rituals. John Smulo also correctly notes that in The Satanic Bible, LaVey clearly plagiarized the (possibly parodical) radical tract Might is Right (Redbeard; Smulo 28).

Ignorance of Hebrew and the Hebrew Bible:  LaVey uses the “magic” word “Shemhamforash” as an exclamation in his rituals (LaVey The Satanic Bible 130, 34, 48, 50, 52; LaVey The Satanic Rituals 43, 45).  This is a Hebrew term, hashShem hamMeforash, which refers to the Divine name YHWH.  Considering LaVey’s unapologetic hatred for the God of Israel, invoking YHWH should be the last thing he wants to do.  Likewise problematic is his use of the Hebrew term Liwyathan (Leviathan) in the LaVeyan Satanic Baphomet symbol (LaVey The Satanic Bible 136), found on the covers of The Satanic Bible, The Satanic Rituals, The Satanic Witch, The Devil’s Notebook, and The Satanic Scriptures.  The most positive reference to Liwyathan in the Hebrew Bible is as YHWH’s pet sea monster (Psalms 104:26); other references depict Liwyathan as being destroyed by YHWH (Isaiah 27:1; Psalms 74:14).  The symbol therefore backfires, giving the impression of something less powerful than YHWH and not a real threat, perhaps even something amusing.  One could even make such an argument about the use of Satan as a symbol.  In the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, the Adversary (hasSaṭan) is never depicted as anything anywhere on par with YHWH or the Trinity; one cannot really expect anyone to have any hope when fighting against an immortal, transcendent creator deity.  Given LaVey’s emblematic use of a symbol which signifies something vastly inferior to what his archenemies believe in, he might as be wearing an “I AM A LOSER” T-shirt.

Also:  LaVey believes that saṭan (“Satan”) means “opposite” (LaVey The Satanic Rituals 13), whereas it only means “adversary”.  Furthermore, LaVey claims that beliyya‘al (“Belial”) means “without a master” (LaVey The Satanic Bible 109), an interpretation without any etymological sense.  The actual meaning is probably closer to “useless”, which is an accurate description of the utility of LaVey’s work for understanding Hebrew.

Was LaVey crazy?:  Probably not.  LaVey makes no secret that he does not care to be around people in general (LaVey The Devil’s Notebook 139-42).  However, unless they are willing to live in isolated places away from all the comforts of civilization, even the worst misanthropes have to deal with other human beings.  What LaVey seems to have done is use LaVeyan Satanism as a way of dealing with other human beings on his own terms.  With the aura of selfishness and evil he created around himself, people would naturally tend to avoid him.  Those who did go near him, whether willingly or out of necessity, would naturally feel the need to treat him with deference, fearing what he might do.  (Angering someone with real magic powers would be a bad idea.)  Even his followers fit into this scheme.  They would have to honor him and do his bidding to learn from him or advance in the Church of Satan.  E.g., he expects those around him to agree with him, and there are incidents of LaVey taking bribes for people to advance in the Church of Satan.  The Satanic Witch especially reflects this.  Women learning from him how to be “witches” would have to look and act the way he wanted; despite it all allegedly being for their own benefit, he would get to be around women dressed according to his tastes—like whores—and being liable to “accidental” wardrobe malfunctions.  How much LaVey believes of what he claims is unclear, but he seems to have arranged everything for his own benefit.

Setting a bad example:  Barton follows LaVey’s example closely in The Secret Life of a Satanist.  Though the style of a biography is naturally different from a philosophical tract or a book of rituals, she nevertheless faithfully reflects the bad attitude that LaVey and all who agree with him are great and that everyone else is not.  Gilmore’s The Satanic Scriptures reads like a lower-quality version of LaVey’s books of essays.  He falls in line with LaVey in practically everything and even rationalizes away predictions of LaVey that turned out to be wrong; this book is not worth delving into except by those who wish to become scholars of LaVeyan Satanism.

Much of the bad example set by LaVey (and Rand) is echoed more recently by the likes of Ann Coulter, Richard Dawkins, Ben Stein, and Bill Maher.  The reader may remember that all of these people rated an F on the Adelman theological rating system.  There is not necessarily any direct connection between LaVey and Rand on one hand and Coulter, Dawkins, Stein, and Maher on the other.  However, everyone using unjustifiable rhetoric makes it easier for others to get used to it and come to consider it acceptable.  This does not make for a more harmonious society.

Conclusion:  LaVeyan Satanism appears designed for publicity and selling literature.  There is a consistent pattern of deliberately controversial claims in all books examined other that Lyons’, with little to back up said claims and much disregard for truth.  LaVey also used other people’s material without proper (or any) attribution.  These books are highly recommended for anyone with a strong stomach who wants to know how not to write religious tracts.

Overall classification:  Religious/philosophical literature meant to attract the selfish and scare off everyone else.  On the bright side, at least LaVeyan Satanic literature, once one gets past the bluster and aura of evil, can be amusing.  (Except for Gilmore’s The Satanic Scriptures, which is not as fun as LaVey’s work.)

Theological rating:  F, prefiguring other Fs.  The entire Church of Satan is hereby banned from theology for life and afterlife.  LaVey may make for amusing reading, but amusing bad is only good when it comes to fiction.

Bibliography:

Adelman, Aaron Solomon. "Appeal to Ridicule: A Review of Bill Maher’s Religulous."  (2009).  .

---. "Delusional Victory:  A Review of Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion."  (2009).  .

---. "Faking Reality: A Moral Review of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged."  (2012).  .

---. "No Honesty Allowed: A Review of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed."  (2009).  .

---. "Review of Godless: The Church of Liberalism by Ann Coulter."  (2007).  .

Barton, Blanche. The Secret Life of a Satanist:  The Authorized Biography of Anton Lavey. Los Angeles, CA: Feral House, 1990. Print.

Boteach, Shmuel. Kosher Sex:  A Recipe for Passion and Intimacy. 1st ed. New York: Doubleday, 1999. Print.

Religulous. 2008. DVD. West, Palmer, et al., 2008-10-03.

Coulter, Ann. Godless:  The Church of Liberalism. New York: Crown Forum, 2006. Print.

Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2006. Print.

The Wizard of Oz. 1939. DVD. LeRoy, Mervin and Arthur Freed, 1939-08-25.

Expelled:  No Intelligence Allowed. 2008. DVD. Craft, Logan, et al., 2008-04-10.

Gilmore, Peter H. The Satanic Scriptures. 1st ed. Baltimore, MD: Scapegoat Publishing, 2007. Print.

LaVey, Anton Szandor. The Devil’s Notebook. Portland, OR: Feral House, 1992. Print.

---. Satan Speaks! Venice, CA: Feral House, 1998. Print.

---. The Satanic Bible. New York: Avon Books, 1969. Print.

---. The Satanic Rituals. New York: Avon, 1972. Print.

---. The Satanic Witch. Venice, CA: Feral House, 1989. Print.

Lovecraft, H.P. "The Call of Cthulhu".  1928. Web page. Weird Tales. 2006-07-26. .

Lyons, Arthur. Satan Wants You:  The Cult of Devil Worship in America. New York: Mysterious Press, 1988. Print.

Rand, Ayn. Atlas Shrugged. New York:  Random House, 1957. New York: Signet, 1957. Print.

---. The Virtue of Selfishness, a New Concept of Egoism. With Additional Articles by Nathaniel Branden. A Signet Book, P2602. New York: New American Library, 1964. Print.

Redbeard, Ragnar. "Might Is Right".  1896. PDF file.  Loompanics (partial): 2008-05-20. .

Smulo, John. "Christ’s Advocate:  An Incarnational Apologetic to Satanism".  2001. PDF file. 2008-06-06. .

Thomson, James. "The City of Dreadful Night".  1880. Project Gutenberg Release #1238 (March 1998). 2008-07-06. .

Wells, H. G. "The Island of Doctor Moreau".  2004. Project Gutenberg EText #159.  (2004-10-14):  Project Gutenberg. .

Faking reality: a moral review of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged

Jewish date:  15 Shevaṭ 5772 (Parashath Yithro).

Today’s holidays:  Ṭu biShevaṭ (Judaism), Feast Days of Jerome Emiliani and Josephine Bakhita (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Teletubbie/Homosexual Anxiety (Church of the SubGenius).

Faking reality:  a moral review of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged

by Aaron Solomon Adelman

Atlas Shrugged is Ayn Rand’s magnum opus, a novel of over 1,000 pages describing a world being destroyed by altruism (of all things), and the only hope for the future is a small, secretive group of extremely talented, competent, and mostly rich selfish people led by the mysterious John Galt.  The selfish people (metaphorically Atlas), rather than allow themselves to be taken advantage by altruists, go into hiding in a valley in the American West and let civilization collapse around them (metaphorically shrugging).  And this a priori improbable work is somehow the favorite of a number of Republican politicians today, so I have little choice but to review it.

Ayn Rand fails to discuss theology completely, despite having some nominally religious characters.  The closest she comes is calling gods “imaginary”, which is a mere assertion and not a theological proof.  She also considers religion a tool to allow people to take advantage of each other; while it can be and historically has been used this way, this does not automatically mean that atheism is correct.  Rand cannot even be bothered to put bad theological arguments into the mouths of characters representing views she does not like.  On the other hand, Rand is obsessed with morality.  Hence this is a “moral” review and not a “theological” review.

Rand has an unusual esteem for reason and reality, and she really hates when people pretend that something is real other than what is actually real (“faking reality”).  This is a good thing, as too many in the past century have eschewed rationality, especially in religion and morality.  Sadly her implementation is faulty.  She makes three big errors in reason and reality, tied up in a tight knot, which need to noted before dealing with anything else:

1) Rand’s epistemology (how she claims to know what she claims to know) is inappropriate.  The way she reasons is in terms of Aristotelean philosophy:  she sets down axioms and makes deductions based on them.  Even when done properly, the results can be wrong if the axioms are wrong.  For example, “the sky is always blue” is a bad axiom, as the sky is sometimes gray, sometimes black, and sometimes even other colors.  As we do not know the axioms on which our universe is based, Aristotelean philosophy is an insufficient epistemology.  The current paradigm, the scientific method, includes checking one’s beliefs against reality.  Rand shows no awareness of this paradigm at all.

2) Rand is weaker on logic than a philosopher should be.  Central in her thinking the false dilemma (also known as the false dichotomy), a formal fallacy in which only two possibilities are considered when there are actually more.  For example, one may validly classify all single-colored objects as “black” and “not black”.  It is not valid, however, to assume that all “not black” objects must be white—yet Rand regularly makes this sort of mistake.

3) Despite detesting “faking reality”, Rand repeatedly gets her facts wrong, especially about humans.  To illustrate just how unrealistically she portrays humans, let us review some of more egregiously illogical behavior in Atlas Shrugged,:

1. The government of the United States encourages citizens to behave in ways which are inconsistent with the known behavior of humans and difficult to believe that anyone could realistically perform, such as demanding that they never think and forcing them to spend exactly the same amount of money every single year.
2. All of the countries on Earth besides the United States have gone communist, and the United States government is propping them up so they do not collapse completely.
3. The government of the United States does what it can to wreck the country and make everyone desperate and miserable, which entails the obvious risk of revolt.
4. The government of the United States seeks to nationalize every business, thus giving themselves more work to do, rather than simply collect taxes.
5. Giants of the business world are passive-aggressive.  Rather than try to exert influence on the government, many instead destroy their own businesses rather than try to effect changes in government.
6. The government seeks to destroy functioning businesses and coerces businesses into agreements aimed at destroying business.  This is an obvious recipe for wrecking the economy and sharply reducing tax revenues.
7. The government interferes with the functioning of science, as if it had the power to dictate reality, and promotes the idea that truth is purely subjective and other such blatant nonsense.
8. The government passes laws designed to make it impossible for people to conduct business without breaking the law and engaging in corruption to stay in business.
9. Trials are conducted by kangaroo courts.
10. The court is under the impression that punishing violators requires their consent.
11. The central character, Dagny Taggart, despite being one of the most competent and intelligent of the characters, seems completely unaware that sex has consequences and risks.  She is sexually very passive to the selfish male characters.
12. The government does nothing to stop the pirate Ragnar Danneskjöld.
13. The government somehow collectively thinks that everything can go on exactly the same year after year.
14. The heros are incapable of properly interpreting anything from religious literature, legend, history, or fiction.  Atlas is misinterpreted as holding up the Earth, when he actually holds up the sky.  Robin Hood is misinterpreted as stealing from innocent rich people and giving to parasitic people, when he actually steals from predatory rich people and gives to overtaxed poor people.  Man in Garden of Eden is misinterpreted as he “who existed without mind, without values, without labor, without love”, despite the text of Genesis making no such claims and explicitly contradicting “without labor” in Genesis 2:5.
15. Government appointments are made purely for political reasons, without regard for talent, ability, knowledge, and competence.  Passing the buck for failure is frequent.
16. Anti-intellectualism, not thinking, ignorance, moral relativism, and political oppression are actively promoted as ideals.
17. People are punished for doing excellent work.
18. The government creates a superweapon, Project X, despite having no enemies which are a sufficient threat to merit a superweapon.
19. The government has a third-rate hack create the superweapon based on someone else’s brilliant new physics theory without thinking.  The chances of this working in reality are practically zero.
20. The government bigwigs presume that their enemies, specifically Dagny Taggart and the “hero” John Galt, will be happy do what they want, especially on short notice.  They also presume that they can torture people, specifically John Galt, into doing what they want.
21. The government bigwigs, when torturing John Galt, use a complex, electrified gizmo which breaks too easily rather than a much more robust, low-technology, inexpensive, and equally effective tool, such as a crowbar.

Everyone is well-aware that humans are prone to doing stupid and illogical things.  Even brilliant people are known to make errors.  However, the prevalence and profundity of stupidity in Atlas Shrugged is probably unequalled anywhere at any time in human history.

Now, unrealism in a work of fiction is not necessarily a problem.  Technically speaking, all fiction is unrealistic, as by definition it must deal with events which do not actually happen.  Many enjoyable stories take place in worlds where the physics is different, allowing for magic or psychic powers, or the way that matter is arranged is different, such as with a different geography or different creatures.  Sometimes even the rules of psychology get bent to good effect, such as in Gilligan’s Island, the plays of Gilbert and Sullivan, and Phineas and Ferb.  And if all one is interested in is entertainment, it does not matter how unrealistic anything in a work of fiction is, so long as one is entertained.  However, Atlas Shrugged is supposed to be Ayn Rand’s great work laying out her moral philosophy.  She makes this clear in the introduction to The Virtue of Selfishness, so one cannot dismiss Atlas Shrugged as mere fiction.  For Rand’s philosophy to be applicable in our world, her characters have to behave like real humans.  Because they do not, any attempt at showing that following her moral philosophy leads to desirable results and that not following it leads to undesirable results is inherently flawed—even taking into account the limitations of what can be shown by writing a story.

Selfishness and the naturalistic fallacy:  Ayn Rand’s moral philosophy, the inaccurately named Objectivism, is based on the naturalistic fallacy.  Rand holds that what is good for humans (e.g., in terms of physical and mental health) is morally good for them and builds the rest of the system on this foundation.  She can define her moral system this way (I suppose), but it is objective only with regard to the question of whether behavior fits her definition, and to explain why requires taking a step back.  

Some properties of objects and actions, such as mass, electrical charge, and size, are properties of the physical world and exist whether or not anyone believes in them.  But other properties, such as ownership, marriage, monetary value, legal rights, and legality, only exist because people agree on them.  A table belongs to Ernie, because people agree he owns it, or at least he can convince enough people that he owns it.  If he sells the table to Bert, then the table becomes Bert’s by virtue that they followed a procedure (e.g., giving money) which society agrees transfers ownership of the table.  Properties of this latter kind are called social constructs, and morality is among them, and they are never objective in the same way as physical properties.  Moral systems are social constructs—ones believed in religions to be enforced by a god or karma, but social constructs nevertheless.  One can morally disagree with whatever god or gods one believes in or to argue for a moral system different from that karma enforces, but to deliberately act on such disagreement would be to invite one’s doom.

Returning to Rand:  Rand does not take the idea of deities seriously enough to even bother to argue against their existence, and she never mentions karma at all.  In a purely atheistic universe, with no supernatural reward or punishment, morality is purely a matter of opinion.  Rand can argue her definition is a useful or wise one, but anyone who does not accept her definition of “good” will find her arguments unconvincing.  To make things worse, Rand tries to make her notions of morality more attractive by arbitrary redefining terms such as “love” and “happiness” to make it impossible to non-Objectivists to feel them.

Even assuming that what is good for humans really is morally good, Rand runs into trouble, for selfishness unrestrained easily lets people step on each other.  One can easily find abundance examples in nature of creatures selfishly taking advantage of other creatures (viruses, athlete’s foot fungus, liver flukes, tapeworms, leeches, fleas, etc.).  Why should things be any different for humans?  If selfishness is good, why not steal if one can get away with it?  Why not rape if one can get away with it?  Why not murder inconvenient people if one can get away with it?  While Rand may be selfish, she is not an idiot.  To avoid giving anyone an excuse to literally stab her in the back, she proclaims that everyone has natural rights and it is rational for everyone to not infringe on each other’s rights.  The problem with this approach is that rights are social constructs just as much as morality.  Rand can argue that it is useful or wise for everyone to respect each other’s “right” to property, but that does not mean we naturally have one or that we are morally obligated to respect such a right.

Note also that the Randian definition of “good” is questionable, as the business of life is not the good of the individual.  The business of life is for every life-form to get their genes on to the next generation.  Evolution selects for whatever increases the chances that this will happen, even at the expense of the individual.  Thus evolution frequently—and seemingly paradoxically—produces altruism among social creatures.

Altruism:  Of everything Rand gets wrong, arguably altruism is the concept she botches the worst.  Rand views all social interactions in terms of transactions, as if all life were economics.  In altruistic actions, “payment” is optional or nonexistent, which makes no sense to her economically.  She thus concocts a view of altruism which probably no one has ever believed or acted upon and, by virtue of a false dichotomy, is the diametrical opposite of her own philosophy.  The altruism which Rand opposes is a morality of ruin, in which thinking is taboo, in which one must always put others ahead of oneself no matter what, in which the goal is self-destruction and death.  In Atlas Shrugged, altruists are a bunch of spineless, neurotic doormats who are constantly taken advantage of by anyone claiming authority.  If they do the least thing in their own interests, they feel guilty of hypocrisy.  Their lives are nothing but helpless misery.  By the end of the book, they are all dead, dying, or rioting, having gone crazy and been reduced to little more than wild animals.  This, of course, bears no resemblance to altruism in the real world.  

In the real world, altruism entails benefits for the altruist, even in the most blatantly egoistic and economic terms.  Often altruism is actually reciprocity:  I scratch your back, and you scratch mine.  Someone who does not reciprocate kindness is less likely to receive kindness in the future.  Sometimes the reciprocity is generalized, with the expectation that everyone will show kindness to other people.  Needless to say, people in general would prefer to live among nice people, and being nice oneself is often considered an agreeable “price” for this.  Sometimes people are altruistic to increase their own prestige.  And sometimes altruism is meant to please one’s deity or improve one’s karma, which naturally can potentially bring one benefits.  (And to quash an possible objection before it can be made, it is irrelevant whether any god or karma is real; even if they are not, doing something altruistic for the sake of a god or karma which one mistakenly believes is real is a selfish mistake.)  In complete contrast to Rand’s claim, being altruistic can also be selfish.  Also, real altruists are not doormats; one of the easiest ways to make altruists mad is to abuse their trust.

Rand also grossly misunderstands and misuses other terms she associates with altruism.  Not understanding altruism, she refers to it in emotionally loaded terms, such as “cannibalism” and “immolation”.  But the term she completely inverts the meaning of is “sacrifice”.  In the traditional sense of the term, a sacrifice is an offering to one or more gods.  A sacrifice may be burned on an altar or eaten or pushed off a cliff, but the goal ultimately is a matter of pleasing those one or more gods—and keeping the gods happy is definitely in one’s best interests.  Thus there is a definitely selfish element in sacrifice.  Even in the more modern meaning of the term, such as in “I sacrificed so I could put my kid through college”, there is an element of selfishness; in our example sentence, one wants to have his/her kid to go to college, and thus the sacrifice is worth it.  Rand, however, grossly misinterprets “sacrifice” in accordance with her gross misinterpretation of altruism and views it as meaning destruction for the sake of destruction with a moral imperative.  Though Rand’s “altruistic” characters “sacrifice” for the sake of self-destruction, your humble blogger is unaware of anyone holding such moral views in real life.

The utopia of the selfish:  As mentioned briefly, the heroes of the story are a group of selfish people who eventually all move to a valley in the American West, Galt’s Gulch.  Galt’s Gulch is a utopia.  All the inhabitants are happy and productive, and they live in harmony as they work to rebuild civilization.

Rand’s selfish paradise assumes a group of selfish people who always play by the rules.  Real selfish people do not merely put themselves first; they often hurt other people in the process of benefitting themselves.  Rand thinks government should be limited to the courts, the army, and the police.  Despite this, Galt’s Gulch as depicted appears to have no real government, the nearest equivalent being a former judge who has dreams of a revised constitution.  The lack of government includes nothing in the way of consumer protection.  Any problem with laissez-faire economics (due to an absence of regulation and consumers not having enough information to make the invisible hand work properly) is inherently part of Rand’s system.  Contracts are not a solution, as anything can be put in a contract, and there is nothing to stop the choice of a provider of a product or service from being a choice among bad providers.  Rand makes no provision for public infrastructure, so how, say, public roads get built and maintained is not addressed.  Rand also makes no provision for public health.  While truly selfish people may not care if other people get sick, if they have any sense they should care if other people get communicable diseases.  If immunization is not mandatory, epidemics are practically inevitable—and epidemics hurt practically everyone, especially children before they have received all their shots.  Rand also makes a mistake common in the utopian fiction which your humble blogger has read:  there is no provision for what to do about people who do not wish to live by the rules of the utopia.  Surely one could devise a more workable utopia than Galt’s Gulch.

Spreading the message (or not):  When people think they have an important message, they often wish to spread it to others—and Ayn Rand does want people to read her book and follow her moral philosophy.  This is supposed to happen in Atlas Shrugged, too.  John Galt’s message of selfishness is supposed to be the only thing which can save the Earth.  Surprisingly, for someone who is supposed to be extremely intelligent and capable, he does a poor job at spreading his vision.  For most of the novel, he quietly recruits a few talented people to move to Galt’s Gulch—and everyone he recruits already agrees with his beliefs.  Galt only preaches his philosophy to the United States once, when society is already collapsing, too late to avoid disaster.  There are those who hold by the same philosophy as Galt who preach earlier in the book, but they preach in the wrong settings (e.g., a wedding) and in long, boring speeches.  (Actually all the preaching, both to the characters and the reader, is in long, boring speeches.)  No character is converted by any of the preaching.  Given how weak the premises and logic of Rand’s philosophy are and the rhetorically weak writing style, the only people who would likely accept the preaching for what it is would already be inclined to be selfish.  What Galt and those who think like him really do is grandstanding for the selfish, gloating, and reveling in wrecking everything.  Why are they not spending the entire novel trying to convert everyone and avert all the destruction?

Uncanny symmetry:  One of the odder aspects of this book is that the selfish people are portrayed very much like their archenemies:  United States government bigwigs.  The bigwigs, despite claiming altruism, are themselves selfish—exactly like Galt and company.  Both groups show an extreme lack of concern for other people in general.  Galt and company only show real concern for those who live by their philosophy; one of them, Henry Rearden, considers his own family to be parasites—even his own mother, without whom he would not exist at all—and abandons them to starve.  The bigwigs are so nasty that when something does not go according to plan, they eagerly place the blame on someone else, even if their victim is a loyal follower.  The ultimate aim of the bigwigs is to make everything perfect by doing everything imaginable to utterly destroy everything.  And the ultimate aim of Galt and company is... in the interest of creating a better world, to utterly destroy everything.  The only practical difference between the two groups is that Rand gives the impression that the people in Galt’s Gulch will prosper and eventually take over, but that impression could easily prove wrong.  Only one disaster, such as a drought, could wipe them out.  The promise of a great future, even if eventually realized, means little to the great masses suffering now and well into the future—but according to Rand, nobody really cares about them and they do not really matter.  For most practical purposes, there is no difference between the government bigwigs and Galt and company.

Social idiocy:  Saying “I only really care about myself” is a serious social faux pas.  Yes, we all know there are selfish people out there.  And the smart ones tend to camouflage themselves so that their selfishness is not so obvious unless they actually want to become pariahs.  Why did Rand ever publish anything ever promoting selfishness?  Why did she not remain quietly selfish?  Did she want people to hate her?

Relevance in current politics:  Multiple Republican politicians are on record as admiring Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged.  It should be obvious that anyone who follows Objectivism has no place in government.  By definition, such a person should be expected to put him/herself first, even to the detriment of his/her constituency.  If this means favoring big donors and ignoring the concerns of the lower and middle classes, expect him/her to do so, so long as he/she can convince enough people to vote him/her into office and keep him/her there.  Rand also explicitly opposed the government being more than the military, the police, and the courts, so expect an Objectivist in office to be hostile to and to try to eliminate or defund everything else, including Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, the EPA, the FDA, education, consumer protection, NASA, the CDC, and quite a lot of other things.  Unless you are extremely wealthy or extremely influential, expect any Objectivist in office to not care about you.

Overall classification:  Overly long, boring, and unbelievable novel.  Not only is it bad, but it does not even rise to the level of being amusingly bad.

Moral rating:  F.  Since Rand is dead and thus cannot be banned from moral philosophy for life, she is hereby banned from moral philosophy for afterlife.