Anyone who has been by the blessed pages of America’s knowledge fund in the last week or so knows that Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia (the encyclopedia that is 90% of the time right all of the time) has been pleading with you to donate some of your money to Wikipedia. You have no doubt seen his majestic mug grinning confidently at the top of Wikipedia’s page, his steely eyes pointed toward tomorrow. But all is not well in Wikipedia-land: those who have read Wales’ Wikipedia (what a meta thing to do) know that he’s a devout Objectivist and therefore believes altruism is an immoral act. How can we stay true to Jimbo’s creed and still give him money when it’s not in our “enlightened self-interest” to do so? How can we be altruists to the anti-altruist?
Jimbo: The Man, The Legend, The Beard
Some might know that Objectivism is a philosophy created by philosophy-maker and proletariat-hater Ayn Rand, best known for writing profound paperweights like Atlas Shrugged and less effective paperweights like The Fountainhead. Rand believed that mankind could only be moral when he is selfish, forsaking others in order to achieve his highest aims (whatever those may be). This manifested in her undying love for unrestricted laissez-faire capitalism and her hatred of altruism, the sickly belief that people should live to help or benefit others, even if they sacrifice some of their self-interest. As Wales tells us in his Wikipedia, Objectivism “colours everything I do and think.” Fair enough. But how, Jimmy Wales, can we give you money without violating our self-interest? How can we avoid the pitfalls of the dreaded altruist?
We could fail to give Wikipedia any money and therefore remain saved in the eyes of our lord and savior Ayn Rand. We can give money to a Rand disciple (or…imposter!) and hope our benevolent prophetess and goddess in heaven will forgive us. Or we can go on Jimmy Wales’ Wikipedia page, edit it so that it says he’s a devout Communist, and give the man his five bucks so term papers from now until doomsday will be powered by the type of place that on any given day can tell you Paul McCartney is in fact dead and that Miley Cyrus has been nominated for her second National Book Award.
Ross Barkan
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So supporting something you value is altruistic?
Perhaps the writer should ask for donations for a dictionary.
You sorta missed the point, didn’t you. First of all, Rand wrote that self-interest (not selfishness) is moral, while altruism is not. Second, Wales is asking Wikipedia users to help keep it running, assuming that it has value to those users, and that a contribution will be in their own interest.
Altruism (according to Wikipedia) “…focuses on a motivation to help others or a want to do good WITHOUT REWARD …” (my emphasis). That’s what Rand opposed, and that’s what I’m sure Wales opposes as immoral.
I wonder when the news media will figure out that the Wikimedia Foundation spends on program services only 41 cents of every dollar they scam from donors, which earns them ONE STAR (out of four!) from Charity Navigator in organizational efficiency.
I also wonder why the news media never thought to cover the 2009 story of how the Wikimedia Foundation needed extra office space, and as if by magic, they hand-picked Jimmy Wales’ for-profit corporation to be their landlord, THEN obtained competitive bids, THEN asked Wales’ for-profit company to match the average of the competitive bids.
I too wonder why the media don’t seem to care that the 2010 market research study of past Wikimedia Foundation donors was awarded to the former employer of the WMF staffer running the project, without any competitive bidding whatsoever. And when the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation was asked how much the project cost, the guy asking the question was banned from the online discussion.
This article grossly misrepresents Ayn Rand’s philosophy. Objectivism says that you ought to pursue your own rational self-interest by pursuing and creating values. Altruism, on the other hand, declares that you ought to sacrifice your values for others. Jimmy Wales clearly regards Wikipedia as one of his highest values; creating it and working on it brings him immense joy and satisfaction. This is true for many people who use Wikipedia on a regular basis. It’s a personal value for them, so supporting it financially is not a sacrifice. The value of Wikipedia’s prolonged existence exceeds the value of the money they part ways with. Whether or not you agree with her, the writer of this blurp completely misrepresented her theory.
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I am willing to believe that much of the objectivist reaction here is due to a simple elision of “self-interest” and “self-preservation.” It is entirely possible to act volitionally in a way that undermines one’s self-preservation. Problem is, it’s not clear that life’s preservation is an absolute or universal interest, or (even if it were) that there are any less than five or six billion ways to go about preserving it.
As for “self-interest,” it’s a tautology. Every choice and every act of an organism is done to promote its own self-interest, i.e., to maximise pleasure and/or minimise pain. This is merely a description of all animal (including human) motivation. It is utterly trivial to say this or that action is selfish, because every action is.
I’m tired of hearing about “reason” as though it were the opposite of emotion, or as though the schemata and conceptual categories reason created could have any value or priority without feeling. Read Hume, an actual philosopher: rational constructs are one more of the many modes of consciousness (like sensation, imagination, or memory) in which emotion involves itself. There is no such thing as an unemotional argument or decision, and if you’re reacting against that proposition, then your emotions are already at work.
“Altruism, on the other hand, declares that you ought to sacrifice your values for others.”
It does no such thing. If I avoid discomfort or get pleasure from an act of altruism, it is in my self-interest to do so. Now, the specific interest I’m pursuing in the act might vary—the help I offer might only be instrumental to my ultimate end of gaining others’ admiration, or feeling that I have fulfilled this or that moral code that I find to be intrinsically good—but in every case I pursue an interest of mine, and somewhere among those interests could perhaps be included ‘the impression of others’ welfare.’ Others’ welfare is itself a value of mine provided I choose to make it one, and in some situations it can even take precedence over other, normally higher values of mine.
“It’s a personal value for them, so supporting it financially is not a sacrifice.”
Exactly. And ditto to every other donation ever. So stop speaking of self-interest as though there were a less, or more, noble alternative. We are all self-interested, in that we have particular objects of concern that we try to pursue and promote. By her own admission, Rand had more concern for “facts, ideas, work” than for “people.” If that isn’t the best theoretical definition of sociopathy (Google: William Edward Hickman), it’s pretty serviceable in practice. Rand wasn’t the only heroically self-interested person in a deluded world. But I will grant that she may have been the most steadfast and vehement in valuing money over others’ welfare.
Incidentally, Wikipedia, like every piece of property you “own” and every word you might reply with, is crammed full of externalities; elements for which complete attribution or compensation has not been and cannot be given. But then, compensation is quite a newfangled idea in human history. There is absolutely such a thing as a free lunch: you’re confusing “value” with “matter and energy,” and not everybody cares to value value the way you do.
really…. I am an objectivist….. and it is still in my interest to donate money to wikipedia coz I use it daily. It’s free and has lesser errors than, say, Encyclopedia Britannica. So, if I don’t want to be bombarded by advertisements on my favorite reading website, I need to help it stay afloat by donating. I really don’t see how that is not in my self-interest.
And his begging letter isn’t up to Wiki standards, either: http://TriviURL.com/C
“Blah blah blah donating to Wikipedia is within your self interest, Ayn Rand was right.”
Believe it or not, it’s not in everybody’s best interest to donate to Wikipedia. It would indeed be a sacrifice for me to donate to it, because its non existence or ad flow doesn’t effect me. Even Jimbo is smart enough to know this, which is why he doesn’t specify who he wants donations from.