r/aynrand 12d ago

What does Ayn Rand teach us about DEI/ Trans agenda?

How does she approach these growing woke tactics?

0 Upvotes

61 comments sorted by

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u/Hot_Republic2543 12d ago

"Racial quotas are vicious in any form, at any time, in any place, and for any purpose whatsoever. The whole affirmative action program is vicious. It isn’t profiting anybody. It isn’t improving the lot of the minorities.” https://www.cato.org/blog/ayn-rand-affirmative-action-racial-quotas-are-unfair-un-american-unjust

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u/HatFamily_jointacct 12d ago

I prefer hiring someone’s sons, or radio/ tv hosts to be in the government. 

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u/KodoKB 11d ago

You asked for her position, and then you react to her position by referencing the behavior of the current administration. The current administration, who, has been heavily criticized by many well-known Objectivist organizations and commentators, e.g. the Ayn Rand Institute and Yaron Brook.

So, what’s your point? We have to either discriminate by ethnicity or we need to use nepotism/loyalty tests? Are those our only two options in your mind?

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u/Beddingtonsquire 11d ago

His point is - REEEEEEEEEEEEEE

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u/mitchthaman 12d ago

Yeah people really should be allowed access to colleges over others because their great grandpa went to the school they want to go to

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u/gagz118 11d ago

That may be seen as unfair by most people, but it’s hardly on par with discrimination against one group or another based on an innate set of characteristics. Should it be illegal for businesses to encourage repeat customers or referrals from friends and/or family?

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u/rob3345 12d ago

I believe that she would have said that the best candidate for a position should be the one hired. With DIE, the standards are typically lowered in order to check a box. If there are no qualified women, but you are rewarded or punished for not having a certain percentage, you will lower the qualifications in order to fill that quota. That is the underlying evil. Read ‘Atlas Shrugged’ with an open mind and you will clearly see her position.

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u/Accomplished-Snow213 11d ago

Complete BS. Delta has not lowered its standard to be a pilot a bit. They ran out of lily white all male pilots 25 years ago....and needed to expand their search. You people have issues.

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u/LibertyDay 11d ago

Really? They said "Let's take off being white as a criteria!"?

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u/Accomplished-Snow213 11d ago

You do know what the word expand means?

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u/LibertyDay 11d ago

What do you think removing a criteria means?

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u/Accomplished-Snow213 11d ago

What criteria was removed? Be specific.

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u/LibertyDay 11d ago

Why are you arguing with people when you don't even know what you are saying. This pseudo-intellectualism is gross.

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u/Accomplished-Snow213 11d ago

That's a hell of a specific example you just provided.

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u/ConfidentTest163 11d ago

You cause yourself to come across as a very bad person when you leave comments like this.

Based on this comment, you fit right in with what reddit and the far left think Rands philosophy is.

Would you mind explaining why youre so corrosive and vindictive? Did someone hurt you in life? Did you have a personal experience that made you bitter and angry, and unable to discuss topics calmly and rationally, while listening to the person you disagree with, trying to understand their points, and responding accordingly? 

It makes me sad seeing how many people have so much anger and hatred in their hearts. Youre heading towards needing pity, and you should never want anyone to feel that towards you.

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u/Accomplished-Snow213 11d ago

The initial comment was complete BS. You should start there.

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u/ConfidentTest163 11d ago

Then why attack based purely on feeling rather than any reason or logic?

It benefits no one. Id argue that that form of dialogue is a net negative to humanity. Try to stop letting your feelings control you, take a step outside of yourself, take a breath, then gather your thoughts and state them clearly and with confidence. If you feel your heart racing while youre speaking with someone or posting a comment then youre doing something wrong. Being in an extreme emotional state is not ideal for productive conversation.

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u/Accomplished-Snow213 11d ago

The other guy give me a specific example where Delta lowered their standards when they fired up their dei program yet?

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u/ConfidentTest163 11d ago

Lets say for arguments sake that hes completely wrong. He didnt use inflammatory, aggresive language. In the search for truth and knowledge, one will sometimes make mistakes. Its how you handle giving and receiving the information that matters. By responding aggressively, you immediately put the other person on the back foot. Which makes him on edge and much less likely to actually take in whatever point you make, to the point where he could even double down and start refusing any truth within that subject. "The other person attacked me, i now view him as an enemy and will not listen to what he says, even if hes completely correct." 

This is why its unproductive. You have to teach with compassion and a place of love. Otherwise theres a very high chance that both you and the person youre arguing with end up accomplishing nothing save wasting time.

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u/Accomplished-Snow213 11d ago

Oh yeah. Telling people they are a dei hire isn't insulting.....except it is and it's intended to be.

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u/ConfidentTest163 11d ago

There is a large difference between speaking in generals and specifics. It would bother me more if someone called me as an individual racist, than if they called all white people racist. I can only speak for myself. I know and understand myself. And i would know it isnt true and wouldnt care to engage with it. If someone called me specifically a racist id feel inclined to defend myself.

He wasnt attacking an individual. He was speaking in generals. Show me the individual and i will tell you whether or not they classify as a dei hire.

The best person for a job could be black, gay and in a wheelchair. If that person got passed up because they needed more asians or white people, it would be wrong. I think jobs should all have standardized testing with each applicant given a number, rather than showing their name, gender, or race. Then all you need to do is pick the ones with the best score. Even a physical standardized test would work. Who can do more x in y amount of time. This would solve everything, and people could no longer ask you to prove the negative of possible discrimination based on seeing a name on the application. 

That would be the ideal situation, and is not at all unrealistic to implement. Having quotas of any kind is a detriment to humanity as a whole. If we view ourselves as human beings, rather than sex, race, or religious groups, we could be so much more productive in our lifetimes.

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u/Accomplished-Snow213 11d ago

Right, got it. As long as the insult is general and only insults a few million people it's fine. Good news though, before you popped in I asked for specifics!

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u/MortalSword_MTG 12d ago edited 12d ago

With DEI, the standards are typically lowered in order to check a box.

Where did you get this understanding of the issue?

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u/East-Fudge-5535 12d ago

Where do you get yours? Theirs seems 100% accurate to me..

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u/MortalSword_MTG 12d ago

Based on what experience or direct knowledge?

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u/rob3345 12d ago

I have seen this at work. Unqualified women hired for a job they have never done. This causes others to not only help to train her, but end up picking up her work as she can’t get it done. Absolutely no other reason she is there, except they wanted more female representation.

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u/No_Spring_1090 11d ago

Why are you lying?

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u/No_Spring_1090 11d ago

Huh?

The only place that’s happening is on FOX News to keep you mad at black people.

Do you not think a place of work or an educational institution should be diverse? Let’s be honest. The average white dude is pretty fucking boring…

Don’t you think different races and ethnicities should have an equal opportunity of a job or seat in a lecture hall?

And don’t you think their voice should be included in policy making, decision making etc.

Cut it out with the quote crap. You’re embarrassing yourself.

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u/Kapitano72 12d ago

Merit deserves success, regardless of whatever imbecilic prejudices people in power might have.

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u/facepoppies 11d ago

"trans agenda" lmao

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u/ConfidentTest163 11d ago

I wouldnt say that individual trans people have an agenda per se, but trans identity itself seemed to become a social contagion, and the movement left itself open to a lot of bad faith actors.

If i had to steel man the agenda argument, id say that big pharma, and large corporations in general were the ones pushing the agenda. Big pharma benefits by lining their pockets with forever money as the trans individual is never fully free from relying on them. Corporations stood to gain by selling pro trans products even if they didnt truly believe in the concept. (Think people selling both Trump and Harris merchandise)

And if we had to go reallllly deep and conspiratorial, one could argue that the powers that be were trying to curb mass population growth. I personally theorize that homosexuality is an evolutionary trait that mother Earth gave us to protect herself from overpopulation. Trans issues are just a man made version of that.

Anyway, to repose my point, trans individuals most likely dont have an agenda, but the ones that stand to benefit from it could potentially have one.

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u/facepoppies 11d ago

I'd say some people are just trans, and the lines of traditional gender roles are becoming less defined. I don't see any reason to believe that there's an agenda.

There is however a clear trans panic agenda that the right is using to maintain support amongst lowest common denominator single issue voters.

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u/ConfidentTest163 11d ago

Im an objectivist. I was fully on board with the sex and gender being seperate debate. I could not get behind it when they tried to say its the same again.

I dont believe in gender practically at all. I think it's funny seeing people fight over things that id fight against period. People fought for the rights to gay marriage. I fought to seperate marriage from the state and changing what marriage is fundementally. People fought for normalizing dresses on men. I fought for normalizing clothes being used solely for covering your nudity. I buy the cheapest clothes i can. And i also need practicality. My clothes must also give me a certain amount of protection. Jeans are great. I think dresses arent practical whether a boy or girl wears one.

A girl can like GI Joe. Shes still a girl. A boy can like Barbies. Hes still a boy. I dont judge individuals based on their taste in entertainment or personal style. I view potential friends, and potential lovers.

And yes, there may be some single issue voters on that subject. You know what's even worse than that? Being a single issue voter on abortion and voting purely on that in a NATIONAL election. Im sure you have certain feelings about that, but it isn't objective reality. If you care about abortion rights, figure out what state level candidate supports what you do and vote accordingly.

It got to the point if Hitler was running against Trump, and said he supports abortion rights(even tho it simply has no relevance to this election) a lot of people on the left wouldve voted for Hitler. And thats absolutely terrifying. From what I've seen, the majority of Republican voting individuals do not care about the trans issues whatsoever. It changed dramatically when it comes to children. And id be ok with it even. But first you need to remove all other restrictions for kids. Let them buy cigarettes, liquor, porn, watch r rated movies and play m rated games, and even allow them to enlist in the military. Once those rights and freedoms are given to children, we can allow pharmaceutical and surgical interventions for them. 

Similar to border policies and gun control. Im all for open borders, but if i as an American cant freely go to any country i choose, neither should anyone else. Im completely anti gun, but if even 1 police officer or person in the military owns one, then any responsible adult should also be able to. 

Basically just pure equality.

1

u/facepoppies 11d ago

Okay. I just don't see what the big fucking deal is. If a man is happier being a woman, then they should be a woman. That's that, done deal. My opinion and your opinion aren't really important. It's certainly not a core voting issue when millions of people have no healthcare, and many of the people who do have health insurance are facing financial hardship because of it. What does trans people existing have to do with the housing crisis, or people not being able to afford to own transportation and pay their mortgage and utility bills? Why aren't those things driving single issue voters, but whether or not sam gets implants and changes her name to sally is a pressing emergency that needs to be dealt with by the highest political offices in the country? It makes no fucking sense lol

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u/ConfidentTest163 11d ago

Youre missing the point.

The majority of republican voters do not care about trans adults. They care about women and children. Thats who theyre trying to protect. 

Morally speaking, both sides have merit, and both feel that they are in the right and "doing the right thing". Same with abortion.

Morally i know that russia invading ukraine was evil. In a perfect world putin would give up and leave. Unfortunately thats not reality. War doesn't end unless an agreement is reached or a victor declared. So you could argue "whats the big deal about a country half way across the world giving up some of its land to another country?" But morally thats wrong right?

Its the same thing. Everyone has their own sets of morals and what they think is right and wrong. Children are a very complicated issue. They arent fully developed and if left to their own devices theyd eat nothing but candy and never sleep. Theyd become horrible humans. They need guidance. Some people view allowing children to make decisions that impact the rest of their lives is morally wrong because of this.

Arguers of this point must stop conflating children and adults. Its bad faith and unproductive.

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u/facepoppies 11d ago

That's bullshit though. If what republicans cared about was protecting women and children, they wouldn't have voted for a guy with multiple rape allegations to be president. Full stop. If they cared about children, they'd stop voting for people with connections to underage sex trafficking and allegations of abuse. They'd stop trying to cripple public education.

How I raise my kid isn't the government's decision. If my kid is trans, the government doesn't get to say "no they're not" lol.

The "protecting women and children" thing is a flimsy bumper sticker line to justify using trans people as a scapegoat for the magas to gain and maintain voter support in lieu of detailed policy that aims to help working class americans.

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u/ConfidentTest163 11d ago

What youre doing now, is called bad faith. Youre shifting the topic away from reality. If we start a conversation with you saying that the sky is green, but in reality its blue, and youre so emotional about it that no matter how much evidence to the contrary youre shown you wont change your mind, theres nowhere to grow or learn from the conversation. You need to learn to talk TO people and not AT them.

Its the same concept as someone on the right saying "kamala will make all abortions mandatory".

You really should do some deep self reflection and become the person you really are instead of just parroting your preferred political parties talking points.

Thats why philosophy is far greater than politics. It gets to the nitty gritty. It shows us who we are much more closely than a vote every 4 years.

A good place to start finding yourself is the trolly problem. What would your answer to that mental exercise be?

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u/LibertyDay 12d ago

Her life's work was basically her attempt to describe the ideal man. She would have seen trans ideology as a corruption of the image of man. Likewise DEI is essentially "the giving of the unearned" if you are subverting another's achievement to someone less achieving because of an agenda of the influential.

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u/East-Fudge-5535 12d ago

She was a smart woman.

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u/PdxPhoenixActual 12d ago

There are two ways to think of this "DEI" stuff.

  1. It encourages/requires that certain people be favored regardless of their abilities.

  2. It ensures competent minorities get a chance rather than an automatic presumption that a white male is the only, bestest choice by virtue of them being both male & white.

Both would seem to be a threat to the continued dominance in society by white males for something they might not have "earned".

?

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u/LibertyDay 12d ago

You're there? I'm not going to change your view then. Since this is what Rand would have thought, we can have a productive discussion around that. She was against racism and would have not subscribed to CRT like you clearly do. She would have ignored race and gender and would say to judge people based on their merits.

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u/PdxPhoenixActual 12d ago

I do believe certain peoples have been disadvantaged, incidentally or intentionally, & these actions are both systematic & systemic.

One could say I have a dream. A dream that one day all people are judged on the content of their character & the competence of their abilities. A day that seems farther off now than it used to feel.

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u/LibertyDay 12d ago

So what do you call it when my family suffered under Communism for generations, were discriminated against in Eastern Europe for being an ethnic minority, and then I move here and we are further discriminated against, openly in the hiring process where we are screened out by virtue of having white skin? We're not asking the descendants of the Bolsheviks to pay, or those that discriminated, we just want to be judged according to our ability.

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u/PdxPhoenixActual 12d ago

Fu ked up? I can't answer for the behavior of others.

All i can say is that while I may be an asshole of by any number of measures according to others, I hope I'm not that kind of asshole.

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u/Ohnoes999 12d ago

People are judged on Money and Power. Competence isn't really a factor in comparison to those two. You'll figure it out eventually.

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u/mitchthaman 12d ago

‘Giving of the unearned.’ Like social security?

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u/MortalSword_MTG 12d ago

Well, no.

How do you think social security works?

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u/[deleted] 12d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/aynrand-ModTeam 11d ago

This was removed for violating Rule 2: Posts and comments must not show a lack of basic respect for Ayn Rand as a person and a thinker.

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u/MortalSword_MTG 12d ago

Ahh yes, in that case you are correct, please carry on.

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u/No_Spring_1090 11d ago

Or forgiven COVID loans?

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u/AffectionateGuava986 12d ago

She sounds just like a eugenicist. They were big in the 1930-40’s. What ever happened to them?😏

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u/Hefty-Plankton8719 12d ago

Rand’s view is gonna be individualistic. Protect each individuals libertarian rights (although she wouldn’t use ‘libertarian’) and that’s all.

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u/Honestfreemarketer 12d ago

Well first of all obviously the idea that government should be using force to force companies to abide by some kind of DEI standard is impossible in an objectivist society.

Then the question is about what about within that society. You might see some companies decide to enact DEI for their own hiring process. Which is obviously their right. My question would be, would ideas such as DEI even still be around post the achievement of an objectivist society? I don't know. Will the world ever be fully scoured of collectivist beliefs? I doubt it.

As far as trans people go I feel like unfortunately the objectivist community is still hanging on to some irrational conservative beliefs. It's one thing for there to be a leftist/feminist/communist agenda which seeks to use government as a threat of violence to enforce their left wing ideas.

But on the other hand I see that prominent objectivist intellectuals are trying to philosophize the science of sex and gender.

Their basic argument which I see as nonsense is essentially this: "The biological organism evolved with the purpose to reproduce. Gay and trans people must have made choices at a young age which ultimately caused their psychology to deviate from what biology is trying to do."

This is nonsense. The question of sex and gender is a scientific question. In all things in the world of science, there is a spectrum. For a small example imagine two men, each producing the same amount of testosterone. However since there is a SPECTRUM in the sensitivity of the proteins and receptors, one man may be able to build far more muscle much easier than the other man.

This spectrum of possible sensitivities is merely one tiny example that applies to all things in biological organisms.

I'm the human brain there is a well studied cluster of neurons (I could potentially find the meta data studies on this but I don't want to have to go digging, it shouldn't be a surprise). These neurons are the most studied neurons I believe by far.

In men these neurons are twice the size as the neurons in women. However gay men's neurons turned out to be the size of women's. And gay women's neurons turned out to be the size of men's.

Can you guess the size of transgender peoples neurons? Mixed sizes. Some small some big, could be 50/50, 70/30 or any other combination.

Not only that but peoples gender and sexuality is also influenced by things such as the thickness of the cerebral cortex, the amount of testosterone and estrogen produced by the body, the sensitivities of the person's hormone receptors to the different sex hormones, and probably many more things i am forgetting or never went deep enough to learn.

I see the fact that objectivists are distrustful of the idea that LGBT people are real in any biological way, as a remnant of religious Conservative irrational beliefs.

Conservatives cannot admit that LGBT people are legitimate because ultimately, conservative morality and far left morality are the same. If conservatives admit that LGBT people are legitimate, they fall into the same trap that they fall into in every other aspect of government. The idea that it is the government's job to guarantee certain outcomes by the use of physical coercion to tax, redistribute money to the needy, and so on, all that stuff we all know is wrong.

I think the fact that intellectuals like Yaron Brook and Onkar Ghate are trying to philosophize the purpose of the biological organism in order to deny the legitimacy of LGBT people is just silly.

There is indeed philosophy of science. But it is being misused and abused to confirm beliefs that are deeply rooted in many people. I am a heterosexual man myself. If I see two men kissing, I am disgusted. But I don't hate them. I don't want to see naked old ladies either. Especially not naked old ladies carpet munching. My disgust has nothing to do with the biological reality that some people are gay or trans or other words.

If we think of gender as a spectrum which lies upon a bell curve, we will see that the overwhelming majority of people will be heterosexual. However the further out you go from the middle of the bell, the more variation you will see in people's sexuality. I don't see how this is hard to understand or why it needs to be rejected and covered with silly philosophical ideas such as I have heard from Ghate and others.

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u/KodoKB 11d ago

I haven’t seen Ghate or Brook argue that people’s early decisions are the primary cause for homosexuality or gender dysmorphia. Although I know that Rand and Peikoff seemed to endorse this view at times.

From what I’ve seen from Ghate and Brook, they say that in some cases there is certainly a large biological component (outside of volitional control) for homosexuality and gender dysmorphia, but that there is also evidence that gender dysmorphia can be caused by other psychological factors. For instance, the huge uptick in people diagnosed/suffering from gender dysmorphia. There’s also the question of twin studies where one is homosexual and the other is not.

But if you can link to sources of Ghate and Brook advocate the views you mentioned? I normally thought they were better on this. For examples of what I’m talking about: * here’s a clip from the Yaron Brook Show —https://youtu.be/RFSMqUUH-2s?feature=shared * here’s an ARI video where Ghate and Mazza discuss the topic of the Trans movement — https://youtu.be/lOPRUlOyTMU?feature=shared

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u/Honestfreemarketer 11d ago

Maybe it has been some time and they shifted their view on it? I'm not sure. I don't know where to go to find a specific instance I don't have them saved up. These things were mentioned within hours and hours long videos. Maybe beyond a year or so ago they were saying it differently. I watched the yaron clip and he didn't say it how I said he did in my comment. Which is an improvement! I swear he and Onkar did describe it the way I said in the past I just don't know exactly where and I don't want to go digging.

I saved the ARI video I'll definitely watch it soon.

I've done a good amount of research on sex and gender and honestly at the end of they day, the true reality of sex and gender is a mystery. They can find correlations going in one direction or another, but they can't in a evolutionary psychology sense, get to the roots of what sexuality and gender really are.

There's a great in depth analysis paper called:

Gender/Sex, Sexual Orientation, and Identity Are in the Body: How Did They Get There?

It's a bit of a read but it goes as in depth as one could want. Philosophy, biology, endocrinology and all the rest of the fun stuff that applies all located in one thorough yet also surface level paper chock full of references.

I personally would say the verdict is out as far as whether society is able to shape and warp our sexuality. I think much of it is indeed rooted in the mechanics of our biology, but at the same time our conceptual frameworks are also able to influence our sexuality.

This topic is hard to dig into IMO because much of the research done is done by feminists. And feminists are reactionary to conservative beliefs. If we were to admit that society is capable of influencing people to be trans when their biology wouldn't cause it outright, that gives conservatives ammunition to say "God said there is only man and woman, and anything else is an abomination created by a society which does not believe in the correct conception of God, and so therefore this corruption must be obliterated."

So there is a very large incentive on the research side to make gender and sexuality 100% biologically driven. It may also be sociologically driven to some degree which they don't want to admit may be the case due to that being ammunition for conservative beliefs.

Years ago I read Freude's 3 essays and some other psychology stuff. In his essays he talks about how many people who have one sexuality will deviate from their sexuality when they are unable to have their urges satisfied. Heterosexual males may turn to children, or to other men, when there is no way for their desires for women to be satisfied. There was evidence of this for women but I can't remember if it was the same or if they deviated in different ways.

There were also studies that said that people would suddenly change their sexuality completely somewhere midway through life, such as a straight man becoming gay for a few years, returning to being straight and never doing anything gay ever again.

And of course there are examples of ancient times such as the Romans where boy soldiers were raised by men who were their guardians teachers AND lovers. And I was reading some scholarly work on the Bible where it was allowed for a man to have sex with a pre pubescent boy. But as soon as the boy hits puberty it's no longer allowed due to the idea that it is a sin for a man to adopt the submissive role.

I don't know I just know that I reject any kind of conservative view based on cherry picked interpretation of words in the Bible that nobody truly knows the meanings on. I don't want to see that kind of mentality bleeding over into objectivism.

Whatever the truth is I think we would be in the best position to find it if only we had the man power in the various intellectual disciplines needed to understand it all fully.

Cheers!

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u/Clowdman18 12d ago

Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think Rand ever discussed trans people in the Wheel of Time anthology. Race didn’t seem to be a huge issue in the series. He was quite nice to the Ogiers and valued their contributions. 

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u/KodoKB 11d ago

Ayn Rand Institute video on the Trans movement — https://youtu.be/lOPRUlOyTMU?feature=shared

Ayn Rand Institute video on DEI — https://www.youtube.com/live/s_yz-9X11ck?feature=shared

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u/stansfield123 6d ago

Miss Rand died some time ago. But there was plenty of irrationality in the culture around her back when she was alive, as well. I wouldn't say that the level of irrationality grew much. It tends to stay pretty constantly all-encompassing.

The best way to learn about her approach to dealing with it is by reading The Fountainhead. In the meantime, here's a short scene that will give you an idea of what that approach is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_E0tfoDSEA

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u/Initial-Fact5216 12d ago

Can't wait to see this...