Emma Goldman And Ayn Rand

Human being’s true nature and essence has been a relevant topic in philosophical thinking for a long time. One of the most important aspects discussed when considering human’s true nature is ‘estrangement’. Whether or not we are born with a predefined set of rules that makes us egotistical and separates us from one another or whether we are altruistic in essence. If it happens to be the case that humans are estranged in essence, it t is important to consider whether or not estrangement can be overcome by certain means. This is a topic that also affects political thinking and although coming up with a definite answer has proven to be an incredibly difficult task, an answer or the approximation to one would be incredibly helpful in organizing

Attila is the physical power institutions like the government have on the society, this type of force is embodied for example in police forces , sentences in prisons and political violence. In a very different way but to a similar effect, the Witch-Doctor as described by Ayn Rand is that who controls people’s soul. Examples of this are religious faiths and for Emma Goldman it might even include patriotism. Examples of how Goldman think that the Witch-Doctor causes estrangement are for example how patriotism leads to killing and division between nations (Goldman, 128), how “religion, especially the Christian religion, has condemned woman to the life of an inferior” (Goldman, 196) creating estrangement between sexes and she believes that to inculcate faith is to destroy the inquiry potential in a kid (Goldman, 154). These latter is of special significance because only an individual with full inquiring capabilities reach a full level of rationality. Rand also believes that the forces the Witch-Doctor and Attila prevent society from reaching their full reasoning potential (Rand, 51) and therefore prevent people from overcoming

She believes that both the Witch-Doctors and Attilas are sworn enemies of reason. She believes that the With Doctors are preaching a wrong sense of morality as morality should be defined by every person and should never be imposed on them through guilt as religions do most of the time. The Witch-Doctor also “pre-empts the field of morality” (Rand, 12). She says that “a society based on and geared to the conceptual level of man’s consciousness, a society dominated by a philosophy of reason, has no place for the rule of fear and guilt” (Rand, 20). Fear and guilt are both Attilas and the Witch-Doctors methods of asserting dominance, for Ayn Rand, rationality can’t flourish when someone is vulnerable to fear and guilt. For Rand, religions such as Christianity also inhibit people from reaching their full reasoning capabilities as they force people to believe that they should live a life of submission and inferiority. Rand doesn’t agree with the idea that other philosophers have proposed in the past that reason and freedom have already failed and that we should rely on faith (Rand,