The Journals of Ayn Rand (17 page)

One puts oneself above all and crushes everything in one’s way to get the best for oneself. Fine! But
what is that best
? Which leads to the question: are morals, or ethics, or all higher values, a thing outside [oneself], i.e., God’s law or society’s prescription, something related not to a man, but to others around him, an ultimatum forced upon man and essentially selfless and
un
selfish? Or [are these values] a man’s very own, his sacred, highest right, his best inspiration, his real life and real self?

And further: what is the
self
? Just the fact that one is born and conscious, just the “I” devoid of all definite content?
Or—
the “I” that values, selects and knows precisely the qualities which distinguish it from all other “I‘s,” which has reverence for itself for certain definite reasons, not merely because “I-am-what-I-am-and-don’t-know-just-what-I-am.” If one’s physical body is a certain definite body with a certain definite shape and features, not just
a
body—so one’s spirit is a certain definite spirit with definite features and qualities. A spirit without content is an abstraction that does not exist. If one is proud of one’s body for its beauty, created by certain lines and forms, so one is proud of one’s spirit for its beauty, or
that which one considers its beauty.
Without that—there can be no pride of spirit. Nor
any
spirit.

If the higher values of life (such as all ethics, philosophy, esthetics, everything that results from a
sense of valuation
in the mental life of man) come from within, from man’s own spirit, then they are a right, a privilege and a necessity—
not a duty.
They are that which constitutes a man’s life, and if he is an egoist in the best sense of the word he will choose these higher values
for himself
and for himself alone, i.e., for his own sake and satisfaction, not because of a duty to God, fellow-men, the State or any other fool abstraction outside of himself. A man has a code of ethics primarily for his own sake, not for anyone else’s. Consequently,
an ethical man is essentially an egoist. A selfless man cannot be ethical.

To explain what may sound like a paradox: if by ethics we understand all sets of values, all standards of conduct and thought (without specifying at present just what standards are to be considered ethical; i.e., taking merely the quality of valuing, without defining how one should value), then a man who does not consider his values as his, but merely as prescribed to him, or who acts virtuously because he has to, not because he
wants to
—that man can hardly be considered virtuous or ethical. The man to whom virtue, or that which he considers virtue, is a necessity, not a painful duty, is the truly ethical man. As example: if a man dies for his cause, because he hates to do it, but feels that some higher power—God or State—compels him to, he is a poor hero; if a man dies because it is his cause and he wishes no choice but to defend it at any cost—he is a hero.

The question as to what constitutes a standard of values will come later. The primary question is only to establish such a thing as a standard of values and its necessity as part of a man’s own self—without which there is no such thing as
self.

Now, then, if a man is a ruthless egoist, just what form does his egoism take? Does he fight, struggle and claim for himself those higher values and his right to follow them?
Or
—? ?—what? The generally accepted example of pure egoism is a ruthless financier who crushes everything in order to obtain money and power—but can he truly be considered an egoist? What does he do with the money? To what purpose does he use the power? Doesn’t he merely—and this is always the case with the conventional type of egoist—give up all standards of value, those prescribed to him as well as his own, in order to get the money? Doesn’t he play down to the mob in every sense and manner, encouraging its vices, sacrificing his own opinions, serving others,
always others,
as a slave—to gain his own ends? Well then—what ends?

Who is the true egoist:
The man who crushes his own “I” to succeed with others, to fool them, betray them, kill them—but still live as they want him to live and conquer to the extent of a home, a yacht and a full stomach?
Or
—the man who puts his own “I,” his standard of values, above all things, and conquers to live as he pleases, as he chooses and
as
he believes? If a dictator, such as Hitler, for instance, has to play down to the mob in order to hold his influence and rule—
does he rule
? Or does he merely give orders as long as he gives the kind of orders the mob wants to obey? In which case—
who rules whom
? If [William Randolph] Hearst has a great influence because he always sits on the fence and says only that which is “box-office” —where is the influence? When and where can he say what he wants and succeed in getting it? Isn’t he the greatest of slaves instead of the greatest of powers?

Is power the possibility to force others into doing what you want—or merely in sitting on a high throne, in the full glare of the public light, executing what others want you to do? If a man who is not a Nazi pretends to be one and goes on pretending to the end of his days in order to have a soft job, money and food—is he to be called an egoist? Or isn’t the true egoist the one who starves in exile for the right to believe what
he
believes?

A true egoist, therefore, places his ego and the claims of his ego in the realm of higher values. He demands these values because he wants them, and is utterly
selfish
in his demand. If higher values are the meaning of life, if they
are life
—well then,
an egoist demands the highest.
The man who sacrifices these values for physical comforts does not demand very much. He is not an egoist—
because the ego is absent.

An egoist is a man who lives for himself.
In this, I can agree with the worst of Christian moralists. The questions are only: 1) what constitutes living for oneself? and 2) if the first is answered my way, i.e., living for one’s highest values, then isn’t living for oneself the highest type of living, the only real living and the
only ethical living possible?

Consequently, my “egoism as a new faith” is a higher meaning and a higher exaltation of the word “I,” of that feeling which makes man say and feel “
I
.” Which brings me to the second point of the book.

 

II.
The thing which is most “wrong with the world” today is its absolute lack of positive values. [There is a lack] of moral standards (not merely the old-fashioned “Victorian morals,” but of
anything
approaching morals, anything that values, differentiates and says “yes” or “no”), a lack of honor, a lack of faith (in a philosophical, not a religious meaning, faith as a set of certain principles, as a goal, aim or inspiration, as a life-system). Here again, it is not the absence of a certain type of values that I mean, but the very act and habit of valuing and selecting in one’s mental life. Nothing is considered bad and nothing is considered good. There is no enthusiasm for living, since there is no enthusiasm for any part, mode or form of living.

(Incidentally, this explains the tremendous popularity of communism among people who are not communists at all, particularly the young people. Communism, at least, offers a definite goal, inspiration and
ideal, a positive faith.
Nothing else in modern life does. The old capitalism has nothing better to offer than the dreary, shop-worn, mildewed ideology of Christianity, outgrown by everyone, and long since past any practical usefulness it might have had, even for the capitalistic system. Furthermore, that same Christianity, with its denial of self and glorification of all men’s brotherhood, is the best possible kindergarten of communism. Communism is at least consistent in its ideology. Capitalism is not; it preaches what communism actually wants to live. Consequently, if there are things in capitalism and democracy worth saving, a new faith is needed, a definite, positive set of new values and a new interpretation of life, which is more opposed, more irreconcilable, more fatal to communism than its bastard weak-sister—Christianity.)

Returning to the immediate purpose of the book: A new set of values is needed to combat this modern dreariness, whether it be communism (which I may not include in the book) or the sterile, hopeless cynicism of the modern age. That new faith is
Individualism
in all its deepest meaning and implications, such as has never been preached before: individualism of the spirit, of ethics, of philosophy, not merely the good old “rugged individualism” of small shopkeepers. Individualism as a religion and a code, not merely as an economic practice. (What in hell is the kind of “individualism” that allows a man merely to run his own grocery [store] instead of a government cooperative, but sends this same shopkeeper to church on Sunday to pray for “loving his neighbor as himself”?) A revival (or perhaps the first birth) of the word “I” as the holiest of holies and the reason of reasons.

Am I wrong? Well—let’s consider it. What we actually have today is an individualistic (or at least so-called) form of economics with the most perfect communistic ideology that any Soviet could hope to achieve. In our economic life there still is a chance for the private initiative that made all modern technical progress possible—but it is absolutely absent from our spiritual life. Consequently, we have the appalling spectacle, decried by all, of a highly developed technological civilization along with complete spiritual stagnation. We have developed technically—oh yes!—but spiritually we are far below Renaissance Italy. In fact, we
have
no spiritual life in the grand manner, in the sense it used to be understood.

Is it the fault of machines? Is the twentieth century incapable and unfit for my spiritual exultation?
Or
—is it only that little word “I,” which, after twenty centuries of Christianity’s efforts, has been erased from human consciousness, and along with it took everything that
was
human consciousness?

It is not the purpose of the book to prove theoretically, point by point,
why
the morality of individualism is superior to that of collectivism, why it is, in fact, the only morality worthy of the name. The purpose is only to show how both of them work in real life: to show the ultimate consequences and results of both—brought to their logical conclusions. Perhaps, in doing so, the question will be answered of itself and the proof will be given. It is not a question of individualism versus collectivism; it is a question of egoism [versus] selflessness. The latter [alternative] is the psychological basis of the former, in concrete human forms. The purpose is to prove that the so-called “selfish” man of today is the true collectivist in spirit, the man who has [renounced] his own “I” for the dictates of others, who has accepted society as his absolute ruler in the realm of spiritual values—and paid the price. As a contrast, as the moral, the theme of the book—[I show] a man who is a true egoist, the man who really “lives for himself.”

III.
What do I mean by “second-hand lives”?

1. All men who have lost the ability to choose, value and pronounce judgment on all questions of spiritual standards. For there is no true judge outside of one’s “I.” Everything accepted on faith or on someone else’s authority is only a warmed-over spiritual hash.

2. All men who have reversed the process of “end” and “means” and to whom the means have become the end. For instance, if an egoist struggles for power to achieve his ambitions and ideals—well and good. But if, in the struggle, he sacrifices his ideals merely to achieve the power, he is accepting a second-hand substitute, a thing that has no meaning, that brings him no value whatever, but takes his values away instead.

3. All men who, by betraying their egos, actually live for others, not for themselves, live only through others (this is the main point). For instance: if a man struggles for power and achieves it by accepting and championing the ideology of the masses, he himself knows that he has no real power, but he has it only in the eyes of the mob. If a man is a crook and cheats to achieve his ends—he himself knows that
he
is dishonest, but will struggle and scramble to preserve a respectable appearance and reputation in the eyes of others. If a man wants to be a writer and hires a ghost to do his great epic, then bows and happily accepts popular acclaim—he himself knows that he is a nonentity, but rejoices in being a genius in the eyes of others. All deceits prompted by vanity, all reaping of faked successes, are a second-hand acceptance of something existing only in the minds of our neighbors, not in us, not in our own reality. (Vanity as the most selfless of qualities.) If a man is praised for writing a trashy movie scenario, and glories in the praise, knowing it was trash, he accepts a second-hand achievement in which he himself does not believe. If a man does not create what he likes, but creates that which he
knows
others will admire—it is second-hand creation.

In other words, when a man shifts the center of his life from his own ego to the opinions of others, when those others become the determining factor in all his higher values, when his ideals are one and his actual existence another, when he cheats himself of all reality to create it in others, when higher values become merely a [possession of others to be used] by him for money or physical gain, while he is cheating himself of those higher values and of all life’s meaning—he is leading a second-hand life.

Consequently—coming back to where I started—the “great selfishness” of the conventional opportunist is merely an immense betrayal of his self.