An Excerpt from ‘Credibility and Polarization’: From Ayn Rand’s Bound Periodicals, Now in Paperback

Between 1962 and 1976, Ayn Rand published a series of periodicals: The Objectivist Newsletter, The Objectivist, and The Ayn Rand Letter. Though many of the articles she published there were anthologized, some have only been available in bound periodicals long available for purchase from the Ayn Rand Institute. These periodicals are for the first time available in paperback, at a significant discount from the original hardback versions.

The bound periodicals are invaluable as a means of understanding the historical context in which Rand wrote her nonfiction. Here we see her view of the American cultural-political scene unfolding in reaction to major milestones of the twentieth century: the Kennedy–Johnson administrations, the Vietnam War, the campus student rebellion, and the stagnation of the 1970s. Readers can see a high-level survey of the rich array of content in this earlier article in New Ideal. Rand not only comments on politics, but publishes theoretical articles on epistemology and esthetics, along with reviews of the art and literature of her day.

New Ideal is pleased to feature short excerpts from these bound periodicals. Each is from an article never anthologized, exclusively available in the bound periodicals, and now available for purchase from Amazon.

Here we republish a short excerpt from “Credibility and Polarization,” an essay in her third periodical, The Ayn Rand Letter, from October 11, 1971. Rand identifies the use of a specific “anti-concept,” a term devised to distort our understanding of important issues. “Polarization” is a term still used today to suppress debate about fundamental philosophic principles.

Intellectual confusion is the hallmark of the twentieth century, induced by those whose task is to provide enlightenment: by modern intellectuals.

One of their methods is the destruction of language – and, therefore, of thought and, therefore, of communication – by means of anti-concepts. An anti-concept is an unnecessary and rationally unusable term designed to replace and obliterate some legitimate concept. The use of anti-concepts gives the listeners a sense of approximate understanding. But in the realm of cognition, nothing is as bad as the approximate. If, loaded with too many approximations, you find yourself giving up the attempt to understand today’s world, check your premises and the words you are hearing. To understand what one hears and reads today requires a special translation.

Now to introduce myself, in this context. Philosophically, I am an advocate of reason. Practically, my task is to demonstrate that man needs philosophy in order to discover the proper way to live on earth. Journalistically, part of my task is to serve as a translator by identifying, whenever necessary, the meaning of the worst anti-concepts in our cultural smog. Colloquially, in this respect, call me a bromide-buster.

One of today’s fashionable anti-concepts is “polarization.” Its meaning is not very clear, except that it is something bad – undesirable, socially destructive, evil – something that would split the country into irreconcilable camps and conflicts. It is used mainly in political issues and serves as a kind of “argument from intimidation”: it replaces a discussion of the merits (the truth or falsehood) of a given idea by the menacing accusation that such an idea would “polarize” the country – which is supposed to make one’s opponents retreat, protesting that they didn’t mean it. Mean – what? . . .

To read the rest, order your copy of The Ayn Rand Letter from Amazon today.