RESPONSES TO REVIEWS

THOMAS GRAMSTAD RESPONDS TO REASON

"Real Biology is Individualist, Not Collectivist"

[The following letter was submitted to Reason magazine for consideration in their Letters section.  It is printed here in its full version for the benefit of readers interested in contributor responses to reviews of Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand.  Gramstad, of course, speaks for himself, not for any other contributor to the volume.]

In her fruitful and engaging review of Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand in Reason (August 1999), Cathy Young writes that:

Gramstad offers a rousing "Randian-feminist synthesis" in which the heroic individualist potential of Rand's philosophy is fully extended to women. Like Brown and some other contributors, however, he is much too uncritical of the feminist dogma that all psychological differences between the sexes are social in origin, and much too inclined to dismiss biological theories of difference by citing ideologically driven critiques.

Not so; I do not deny the importance of biology. Young fails to consider that biological difference does not mean, and cannot be reduced to, sex difference. People are indeed so different, even biologically, that relying on biological averages or statistical tendencies is often misleading and unhelpful and may even be life threatening.  A New Scientist article (14 Nov 1998, "Tailor Made Personal Drugs to Suit Your Genes", pp.32-36), illustrates this point. What is good and healthy for one person may be unhealthy or even poison for another. Preferences in food and drinking no doubt have a significant biological component. Other preferences and values may as well. But sociobiologists and social conservatives seem to have misunderstood what conclusions may be drawn from this. The conclusion is not one about averages, uniformity and biology as destiny. On the contrary, the conclusion is one about customization, individuality, and one's unique identity as destiny.

One is reminded of Barry Vacker's vital essay and his fundamentally important identification of second wave vs. third wave esthetical paradigms.   Now, observe two things:  (1) The bulk of human biological difference is not related to sex.  Most biological differences between people are not related to reproduction. (2) Emphasizing "group differences" (real or imaginary) always implies deemphasizing, reducing, marginalizing and denying individual differences. I always find it strange and self-contradictory when libertarians, alleged individualists, are eager to run gender collectivist hammerheads into the heads of individuals whose only crime is trying to express non-majority gender or sexual preferences. Anyone may make an argument that biology is important, or that environmental influences are small compared to biological factors in some area or even many areas. Fine.  Such a case, even when it succeeds, is NOT per se an argument for biological or inherent sex roles because of observation (1) above. So far, it is just a lack of a connection, a missing link in the chain of reasoning. But now consider observation (2): one sees that biology is, in fact, OPPOSED to sex role stereotypes, because the former implies individualism and variety while the latter implies collectivism and conformity. "Biological individualism" implies that people are all different, AS INDIVIDUALS, and since these differences are inherent, they are hard to change -- and why would an individualist want to change them, anyway?

Sex role stereotypes, on the other hand, are based on group identity and enforcement of group rules, and on a belief that all men are fundamentally the same and all women are fundamentally the same, and that they are, not different, but "opposite" to each other. Of course, these individual differences would be just as real and inherent/incorporated in the individual if they were the result of early choices or early environmental influences. Neither biology, nor the social sciences and environmentalist theories about humans, support gender collectivist ideas about sex roles. These ideas are ideological, not scientific. The sex role comprachicos don't have a scientific leg to stand on. Space constraints did not allow me to discuss biological individualism in an already densely packed article. I did, however, address the ideological nature and agendas involved in gender and sex research.

Young refers to "feminist dogma" and "ideologically driven critiques", but she got it backwards. Sociobiology, for example, is more ideology than science, dogmatic, and riddled with bias and hidden agendas. It would be more aptly called sociobiologism. Pointing out patriarchally inconvenient facts like the above inevitably inspire some alleged champions of liberty and individualism to label me "Politically Correct"... well, I can live with that. In my experience, the PC epithet is commonly used as a substitute for argument by those who prefer the secondhander collectivist lifestyle of Patriarchal Correctness and sex role stereotypes. At her best, Rand championed sex as a celebration of life, the most intense and ecstatic expression of joy, pride and happiness. In order to realize that ideal, Patriarchally Correct sexuality ("wham bam, thank you ma'am") must be rejected, so that the full scale and potential of human sexuality in all its wonderfully polymorphous, individually unique and artistically diverse glory may be embraced. I have no wish to rob Young of what she describes as "perversely refreshing" ideas of male dominance -- as ONE "natural way of things" among many others. I would like to remind her that each and every natural way is never a universal way. Nature thrives on variety and diversity, which are both preconditions and results of evolutionary change. Natural selection cannot work in the absence of biological variety, and one-way one-form-only monocultures are not only evolutionary vulnerable and unstable, they are headed for extinction.  How is that for a "biological theory of difference"?