The Journals of Ayn Rand (46 page)

The Capitalist System. Selfishness—and the benefits to others as a
secondary
consequence. Government as protection of the individual against the collective. (The police protect single men against mobs—
not
a collective against single evil-doers.)

Duplicate the same process in brief, starting from the altruistic principle and leading to an outline of a consistent collectivist society. (Collectivism as the principle of race prejudice and of every form of injustice.) First—theory, then show examples from practice.

To start with: Man exists and must survive as man. This is not for those who do not believe in reason and logic. (?)
[This last sentence was crossed out.]

The reversal of all moral values when taken from the individual realm into the collective.

Altruism is spiritual cannibalism. If it is so wrong to eat another man’s body—why is it right to feed upon his soul for one’s own survival?

The man who wishes to live for others is merely confirming his inferiority. The infallible test of a man’s value is the degree of his indignation against the idea of compulsion and against the idea of being like others, of being unoriginal. (Look at the others—is
that
what you are proud of being like? If not, do something about it, don’t hold it as a virtue.)

Man is
not
his brother’s keeper. (All responsibility
must
carry with it the authority to enforce it.)

The altruist’s inevitable concern with the inferior—its reasons and results.

The “good of a collective” that demands the sacrifice of an inventor in order to avoid unemployment.

Man cannot give life to himself. But it is up to him to maintain it.

(For “free will”: you cannot change the basic materials—nature, natural law, your own nature—but you are free in the use you make of it; you exercise choice among given materials. Be careful here of the definition of “your own nature”—how much is given to you, how much you can alter. You do not make an automobile nor can you make it perform what it can’t perform, such as flying, but you can drive where you wish.)

It has to begin with pride in self, with that which constitutes
man
—the reasoning mind. The rights or application of the mind is unlimited, except for the right to deny itself—if a mind denies itself, it cannot enjoy the rights which belong only to it. To deny itself means to deny the mind’s essential [nature as] an
individual
entity. The mind can conclude anything it wishes—except that [it may] impose its will by force upon other minds.

The root of the desire to abase man—as in the idea of smallness before nature.

Altruism as a weapon of exploitation. The creators are disarmed. They have the genius, the life gift. But the second-handers have virtue.

If it is good to suffer for others, a true altruist has to make others suffer for still others—thus he is doing them good by making them virtuous. If anyone thinks that this sounds fantastic in theory, look at the way it works out just like that in practice and ask yourself why. There is and can be no other explanation. (If it is good to sacrifice oneself for others, then one makes these others vicious by making them accept one’s sacrifice—since the giver is virtuous and the receiver evil. Thus the altruist achieves virtue at the expense of the virtue of others—is this altruism? But it can mean nothing else. Logically, one would have to land in some such silly situation as the Japanese exchange of gifts.)

No relation of man to man is possible without a moral principle. If there is no such principle, brute force is the only recourse and the only form of relationship. But in any relation between men the unstated and accepted principle [of altruism] is that each must sacrifice himself to the other. Each must attempt to achieve not his own advantage but that of the other man. Both know this to be impossible. No definition [of a moral principle] can be made this way—and no deal. So both drop all moral considerations whatever (“business is business, morality has nothing to do with it”) and both attempt to squeeze all they can out of the other, to sacrifice him to oneself—as the only alternative to an impossible self-sacrifice.
No decent or fair relation among men is possible on the basis of altruism.
Only when one begins with the principle that the other man does not exist for one’s sake, that the other has a legitimate and moral right to his own advantage, only then is a fair relation possible.
Never demand of another man that which would constitute his sacrifice to you. Never grant him that which would constitute your sacrifice to him.

Never initiate the use of force against another man. Never let his use of force against you remain unanswered by force.

Love as exception-making. The vicious implications of the idea of “loving everybody.” Not love—but a benevolent neutrality as your basic attitude to your fellow men. The rest must be earned by them. Justice,
not
mercy.

Remove the idea of altruism from your mind—then look at the collectivists. See these shabby, sordid men of horror for what [they are], without the aura of virtue that idea gave them. What, but that idea, could make men tolerate and accept that horror?

What kind of a person are you? What do you see when you think of “man”—a hero or an Okie? This question is the decisive one—it holds everything. The style of a soul. (If you’re confused, try this. It will tell you everything. Then try to untangle it.) (The worm who wrote to Pat about the Wright brothers—the deliberate belittling of greatness.)
We do not attempt to acquire the virtues of heroes—we attempt to give heroes our vices.
[
“Pat
”
refers to Isabel Paterson, author of
The God of the Machine
and a friend
of
AR’s in the 1940s.]

[In regard to] the Passive Man—stress obedience and following. The first desire of the Active Man—to do things alone and in his own way. The first desire of the Passive Man—to obey and not to be responsible. [The Active Man wants] neither to impose himself upon others nor to be imposed upon. Best results and most moral method of action—alone,
not
together. Tests of school children. Hollywood scenarios. Mob actions—lynchings. Cooperation, not collectivism. Government’s only duty—protect individual rights for individuals,
not
create encroachments for pressure groups. There can be no individual action without productive or economic freedom. There can be no such freedom without property rights. The “body” and “soul” of human rights. Who can rule best—the one or the many? Neither. As little ruling as possible. Then—go to the Capitalist System.

 

 

Mankind is committing suicide.

The peculiarity of the present world disaster is that every group of men in every country is the originator of its own destruction. Men are not fighting one another for self-preservation. They are each fighting all for the right to annihilate oneself as fast as possible.

Intellectuals, such as Trotsky, worked to bring about the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia; they have been murdered by that dictatorship. Industrialists, such as [Fritz] Thyssen, and church leaders, such as [Martin] Niemoller, worked to bring about the Nazi regime in Germany; they have been exterminated.
[The preceding two sentences were crossed out.]
American labor union leaders caused the creation of Labor Boards; these are now the instruments through which labor union leaders are being sent to jail. Republicans who decry the New Deal usurpation of power are now advocating the passage of a labor conscription act which would give the New Deal its last, winning step toward total power over this country. Conservatives, anxious to preserve capitalism, are supporting this measure which would turn citizens into serfs—which would be the end of capitalism, for it cannot function through serfs. Leaders of racial minorities are advocating the destruction of the American system of government—which is the only system that ever has or can protect a racial minority. Intellectuals have embraced, en masse and in toto, the doctrine of collectivism—under which the intellectual professions are the least possible and the first to go. Name a group of men and you are naming that group’s murderers.

There must be a reason for a suicidal mania that has infected a whole world, particularly when the suicide is not conscious or willing, when the victims are thrashing about in wild despair, wondering who is destroying them, swatting at everyone in sight, dragging their brothers along as they race down into the abyss and scream that someone is pushing them.

It is generally recognized that mankind has achieved, since its rise from savagery, a miraculous progress in the realm of its material culture—and none whatever in the realm of its ethics. Our homes are superior to the cave of the Neanderthal man, but our morals are no better than his—worse, if anything, for we do not have his excuse of ignorance. There is no act of inhumanity which he perpetrated and which we do not perpetrate, except that he did not possess our exquisite means of perpetrating it and he could never equal our present scale. In a recently published book
(The Spirit of Enterprise
by Edgar M. Queeny), the author—intent upon a hymn to human progress—spends five pages describing man’s material triumphs. Then he adds: “Our morals have come a long way, too. The mere thought of a feast on a loose piece of human flesh, which to the Bushmen brings mouth-watering longing, is to us horrid and nauseating.” This is all he can offer, without equivocation, for ten thousand years of man’s spiritual growth. And even this claim is open to question, because cannibalism occurred in Soviet Russia in the famines of 1921 and 1933, and God only knows or can bear the sight of what is occurring in Europe now.

Why has man displayed such magnificent capacity for progress in the material realm and yet remained stagnant on the level of savagery in his spiritual stature? This discrepancy has been recognized, decried, deplored, denounced by everyone. It has never been explained. Countless explanations of evil and remedies for it have been offered through the centuries. None of them worked. None of them cured or explained anything.

Yet that which mankind holds as its moral ideal has been known and accepted for centuries. The basic principle of men’s morality has not changed since the beginning of recorded history. Under their superficial differences of symbolism, ritual and metaphysical justification, all great ethical systems from the Orient up, all religions, all human schools of thought have held a single moral axiom: the ideal of selflessness. That which proceeds from love of self is evil, that which proceeds from love of others is good. Self-sacrifice, self-denial and self-renunciation have ever been considered the essence of virtue. In no other matter has mankind held to such total unity, so completely and for so long. Altruism is the doctrine which holds that man must live for others and place others above self. Humanity has proclaimed its moral ideal unanimously. It has never been questioned. It has always been the ideal of altruism.
[Later in this chapter, AR notes that the cultures of ancient Greece and capitalist America were at least partial exceptions to this rule.]

This ideal has never been reached. In spite of its statement and restatement, in every land, in every age, in every language, in spite of its professed acceptance by all, mankind’s history has not been a growing record of benevolence, justice and brother-love, but an accelerating progression of horror, cruelty, and shame. Baffled, men have accepted the explanation that man is essentially evil; man is weak and imperfect;
he doesn’t want to do good.
The noble ideal of altruism is never quite to be achieved, only approximated; man is immoral by nature.

But look back at mankind’s record. Every major horror of history was perpetrated—not by reason of and in the name of that which men held as evil, that is, selfishness—but through, by, for and in the name of an altruistic purpose. The Inquisition. Religious wars. Civil wars. The French Revolution. The German Revolution. The Russian Revolution. No act of selfishness has ever equaled the carnages perpetrated by disciples of altruism. Nor has any egotist ever roused masses of fanatical followers by enjoining them to go out to fight for his personal gain. Every leader gathered men through the slogans of a selfless purpose, through the plea for their self-sacrifice to a high altruistic goal: the salvation of others’ souls, the spread of enlightenment, the common good of their state.