Spring 2000 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies
Nietzsche and Objectivism

Unit Four: April 17 - May 14

Michelle Cohen's Comment
on Eyal Mozes' Review Essay
on the Relationship Between the Philosophies
of Friedrich Nietzsche and Ayn Rand

To: TOC Cyberseminar <cybersem@objectivistcenter.org>

Sent: Sunday, April 30, 2000 12:50 PM

Subject: Cyberseminar: MC Commentary on E Mozes on Rand and Nietzsche

[From: MICHELLE COHEN ]

Commentary on Rand and Nietzsche



I do not have much to add to the discussion of Nietzsche's influence on
Rand. Since my assignment was to comment on Eyal's post, I would like to
address the point he makes against Merrill's thesis.

Eyal writes:

[snip]

In judging this theory, Rand's May 15, 1934 entry in her philosophical
journal is extremely relevant. Rand writes:

"What is accomplished if a man attains power and prominence at the cost of
playing down to the masses? It is not *he* that triumphs, it is not his
ideas and standards. It is only his physical frame. Essentially, he is only
a slave to those masses. (Journals of Ayn Rand, p. 71; previously published
in The Objectivist Forum, vol. 4, no. 4, August 1983)."

[snip]

However, Nietzsche never upheld playing down to the masses as the proper or
necessary means by which the Masters gain and maintain their power over the
masses. The Masters don't need to play down to the masses. They are Masters
by virtue of their superior nature. In this respect, Rand's depiction of
Wynand was completely synchronized with Nietzsche: Wynand was born to be a
Master, but he betrayed his true nature by playing down to the masses.

In fact, Wynand is the most Nietzschean of Rand's characters: He comes from
an aristocratic lineage that declined and deteriorated to the level of the
longshoreman who was Wynand's father. However, even at their lowest point,
the Wynands always stood up in the crowd with their aristocratic bearing.
(Wynand's father was nicknamed "The Duke.") Wynand inherited the
aristocratic *biological* makeup as evidenced by his Patrician physical
appearance and his exuberant vigor. He also inherited the dormant
intelligence, talent and drive with which he could revive his aristocratic
lineage and bring it back up to its proper position among the Masters. This
is very much in accordance with Nietzsche's description of the decline of
the Master Race and its possible revival.

In spite of his insistence that Masters and Slaves are born such, Nietzsche
did allow for an exchange between the two classes of men. He writes in
"Human, All Too Human:"

"Now, if there should be an exchange between the two castes, so that duller,
less spiritual individuals and families from the higher caste are demoted
into the lower, and conversely, the freer people from that caste gain
admission to the higher: then a condition has been achieved beyond which
only the open sea of indefinite desires is still visible." (439)

Isn't it an apt description of the course of Wynand's family?

* * *

I am surprised that nobody brought up as yet the case of Rand's play "Night
of January 16th," written in 1933. The character of Bjorn Faulkner is so
distinctly Nietzschean and he certainly does not play down to the masses. He
exploits the masses by his business acumen. His fall is not the result of a
fatal error, like Wynand's. Faulkner is the victim of his father-in-law's
envy and hatred of the good for being the good.

An important Nietzschean element in "Night of January 16th" is the
relationship of the bookkeeper Jungquist to Faulkner. Jungquist exemplifies
the quintessential Slave. He is content and proud to serve his Master as his
proper and natural function. Although Nietzsche writes mostly negatively on
the Slaves, it is apparently because they do not know their place and
function. Rand agrees with Nietzsche that those who cannot be Masters must
worship and serve them, the way Jungquist serves Faulkner, the way Eddie
Willers serves Dagny.

In "Schopenhauer as Educator" Nietzsche writes:

"Only he who has given his heart to some great man receives the first
consecration of culture. The sign of this is shame without self-loathing,
hatred of one's own narrow and shriveled nature, sympathy with the genius
who tears himself away from our dullness and dryness." (ch 6)

In this passage Nietzsche intended to describe how the Slaves can be
inspired by the Masters. However, his description is also very similar to
the way Rand described the function of Romantic Art: The images of heroism
and greatness inspire the common spectators, who are pulled out of their
dull everyday existunce. In Rand's words, a common shopkeeper can be
inspired by the conflict of Gail Wynand, but not by the conflict of another
shopkeeper. For both Nietzsche and Rand, the Masters do not play down to the
masses when they inspire them out of their dullnesc.

In her earlier years, Rand was closer to Nietzsche in her Pessimistic view
of the capacity of the masses to be inspired by the spectacle of a genius.
Her play "Ideal," written in 1934, is a grim testimony. With the exception
of Johnnie Dawes, all of Kay Gonda's fans easily betray what she stands for
and prove that they never really wanted to rise above the squalor of their
lives. Even Johnnie Dawes cannot do anything with the capacity he has to
grasp Kay Gonda's greatness - all he can do is commit suicide and liberate
himself from his misery. Kay Gonda is very much in the position of
Siegfried, "that very free man who may indeed be much too free, too hard,
too cheerful, too healthy, too anti-Catholic for the taste of ancient and
mellow cultured peoples." (BGE 256)

Fortunately, Rand later realized that the American common people were far
better than Kay Gonda's fans. The portrayals of Mike, the electrician who
becomes Roark's first friend, and later of Eddie Willers and Cherryl Taggart
are good indications of how Rand moved away from Nietzsche's pessimistic
view of the masses.

********************

Michelle Fram-Cohen



*****************************************************
Spring 2000 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies

email: cybersem@objectivistcenter.org

All Cyberseminar posts are working papers with copyright
reserved to the author. They may not be published or adapted
without permission, but may be circulated for purposes of
scholarly discussion.

*****************************************************