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PLAYBOY: Miss Rand, your novels and essays,
especially your controversial best seller, Atlas Shrugged,
present a carefully engineered, internally consistent world view. They
are, in effect, the expression of an all-encompassing philosophical
system. What do you seek to accomplish with this new
philosophy?
RAND: I seek to provide men—or those
who care to think—with an integrated, consistent and rational view of
life.
PLAYBOY: What are the basic premises of
Objectivism? Where does it begin?
RAND: It begins
with the axiom that existence exists, which means that an objective
reality exists independent of any perceiver or of the perceiver's
emotions, feelings, wishes, hopes or fears. Objectivism holds that reason
is man's only means of perceiving reality and his only guide to action. By
reason, I mean the faculty which identifies and integrates the material
provided by man's senses.
PLAYBOY: In Atlas
Shrugged your hero, John Galt, declares, "I swear—by my life and my
love of it—that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask
another man to live for mine." How is this related to your basic
principles?
RAND: Galt's statement is a dramatized
summation of the Objectivist ethics. Any system of ethics is based on and
derived, implicitly or explicitly, from a metaphysics. The ethic derived
from the metaphysical base of Objectivism holds that, since reason is
man's basic tool of survival, rationality is his highest virtue. To use
his mind, to perceive reality and to act accordingly, is man's moral
imperative. The standard of value of the Objectivist ethics is: man's
life—man's survival qua man—or that which the nature of a rational being
requires for his proper survival. The Objectivist ethics, in essence, hold
that man exists for his own sake, that the pursuit of his own happiness is
his highest moral purpose, that he must not sacrifice himself to others,
nor sacrifice others to himself. It is this last that Galt's statement
summarizes.
PLAYBOY: What kind of morality derives
from this, in terms of the individual's
behavior?
RAND: This is presented in detail in
Atlas Shrugged.
PLAYBOY: The heroine of
Atlas Shrugged was, in your words, "completely incapable of
experiencing a feeling of fundamental guilt." Is any system of morality
possible without guilt?
RAND: The important word
in the statement you quoted is "fundamental." Fundamental guilt does not
mean the ability to judge one's own actions and regret a wrong action, if
one commits it. Fundamental guilt means that man is evil and guilty by
nature.
PLAYBOY: You mean original
sin?
RAND: Exactly. It is the concept of original
sin that my heroine, or I, or any Objectivist, is incapable of accepting
or of ever experiencing emotionally. It is the concept of original sin
that negates morality. If man is guilty by nature, he has no choice about
it. If he has no choice, the issue does not belong in the field of
morality. Morality pertains only to the sphere of man's free will—only to
those actions which are open to his choice. To consider man guilty by
nature is a contradiction in terms. My heroine would be capable of
experiencing guilt about a specific action. Only, being a woman of high
moral stature and self-esteem, she would see to it that she never earned
any guilt by her actions. She would act in a totally moral manner and,
therefore, would not accept an unearned
guilt.
PLAYBOY: In Atlas Shrugged, one of
your leading characters is asked, "What's the most depraved type of human
being?" His reply is surprising: He doesn't say a sadist or a murderer or
a sex maniac or a dictator; he says, "The man without a purpose." Yet most
people seem to go through their lives without a clearly defined purpose.
Do you regard them as depraved?
RAND: Yes, to a
certain extent.
PLAYBOY:
Why?
RAND: Because that aspect of their character
lies at the root of and causes all the evils which you mentioned in your
question. Sadism, dictatorship, any form of evil, is the consequence of a
man's evasion of reality. A consequence of his failure to think. The man
without a purpose is a man who drifts at the mercy of random feelings or
unidentified urges and is capable of any evil, because he is totally out
of control of his own life. In order to be in control of your life, you
have to have a purpose—a productive
purpose.
PLAYBOY: Weren't Hitler and Stalin, to
name two tyrants, in control of their own lives, and didn't they have a
clear purpose?
RAND: Certainly not. Observe that
both of them ended as literal psychotics. They were men who lacked
self-esteem and, therefore, hated all of existence. Their psychology, in
effect, is summarized in Atlas Shrugged by the character of James Taggart.
The man who has no purpose, but has to act, acts to destroy others. That
is not the same thing as a productive or creative
purpose.
PLAYBOY: If a person organizes his life
around a single, neatly defined purpose, isn't he in danger of becoming
extremely narrow in his horizons?
RAND: Quite the
contrary. A central purpose serves to integrate all the other concerns of
a man's life. It establishes the hierarchy, the relative importance, of
his values, it saves him from pointless inner conflicts, it permits him to
enjoy life on a wide scale and to carry that enjoyment into any area open
to his mind; whereas a man without a purpose is lost in chaos. He does not
know what his values are. He does not know how to judge. He cannot tell
what is or is not important to him, and, therefore, he drifts helplessly
at the mercy of any chance stimulus or any whim of the moment. He can
enjoy nothing. He spends his life searching for some value which he will
never find.
PLAYBOY: Couldn't the attempt to rule
whim out of life, to act in a totally rational fashion, be viewed as
conducive to a juiceless, joyless kind of
existence?
RAND: I truly must say that I don't
know what you are talking about. Let's define our terms. Reason is man's
tool of knowledge, the faculty that enables him to perceive the facts of
reality. To act rationally means to act in accordance with the facts of
reality. Emotions are not tools of cognition. What you feel tells you
nothing about the facts; it merely tells you something about your estimate
of the facts. Emotions are the result of your value judgments; they are
caused by your basic premises, which you may hold consciously or
subconsciously, which may be right or wrong. A whim is an emotion whose
cause you neither know nor care to discover. Now what does it mean, to act
on whim? It means that a man acts like a zombi, without any knowledge of
what he deals with, what he wants to accomplish, or what motivates him. It
means that a man acts in a state of temporary insanity. Is this what you
call juicy or colorful? I think the only juice that can come out of such a
situation is blood. To act against the facts of reality can result only in
destruction.
PLAYBOY: Should one ignore emotions
altogether, rule them out of one's life
entirely?
RAND: Of course not. One should merely
keep them in their place. An emotion is an automatic response, an
automatic effect of man's value premises. An effect, not a cause. There is
no necessary clash, no dichotomy between man's reason and his
emotions—provided he observes their proper relationship. A rational man
knows—or makes it a point to discover—the source of his emotions, the
basic premises from which they come; if his premises are wrong, he
corrects them. He never acts on emotions for which he cannot account, the
meaning of which he does not understand. In appraising a situation, he
knows why he reacts as he does and whether he is right. He has no inner
conflicts, his mind and his emotions are integrated, his consciousness is
in perfect harmony. His emotions are not his enemies, they are his means
of enjoying life. But they are not his guide; the guide is his mind. This
relationship cannot be reversed, however. If a man takes his emotions as
the cause and his mind as their passive effect, if he is guided by his
emotions and uses his mind only to rationalize or justify them
somehow—then he is acting immorally, he is condemning himself to misery,
failure, defeat, and he will achieve nothing but destruction—his own and
that of others.
PLAYBOY: According to your
philosophy, work and achievement are the highest goals of life. Do you
regard as immoral those who find greater fulfillment in the warmth of
friendship and family ties?
RAND: If they place
such things as friendship and family ties above their own productive work,
yes, then they are immoral. Friendship, family life and human
relationships are not primary in a man's life. A man who places others
first, above his own creative work, is an emotional parasite; whereas, if
he places his work first, there is no conflict between his work and his
enjoyment of human relationships.
PLAYBOY: Do you
believe that women as well as men should organize their lives around
work—and if so, what kind of work?
RAND: Of
course. I believe that women are human beings. What is proper for a man is
proper for a woman. The basic principles are the same. I would not attempt
to prescribe what kind of work a man should do, and I would not attempt it
in regard to women. There is no particular work which is specifically
feminine. Women can choose their work according to their own purpose and
premises in the same manner as men do.
PLAYBOY: In
your opinion, is a woman immoral who chooses to devote herself to home and
family instead of a career?
RAND: Not immoral—I
would say she is impractical, because a home cannot be a full-time
occupation, except when her children are young. However, if she wants a
family and wants to make that her career, at least for a while, it would
be proper—if she approaches it as a career, that is, if she studies the
subject, if she defines the rules and principles by which she wants to
bring up her children, if she approaches her task in an intellectual
manner. It is a very responsible task and a very important one, but only
when treated as a science, not as a mere emotional
indulgence.
PLAYBOY: Where, would you say, should
romantic love fit into the life of a rational person whose single driving
passion is work?
RAND: It is his greatest reward.
The only man capable of experiencing a profound romantic love is the man
driven by passion for his work—because love is an expression of
self-esteem, of the deepest values in a man's or a woman's character. One
falls in love with the person who shares these values. If a man has no
clearly defined values, and no moral character, he is not able to
appreciate another person. In this respect, I would like to quote from
The Fountainhead, in which the hero utters a line that has often
been quoted by readers: "To say 'I love you' one must know first how to
say the 'I.'"
PLAYBOY: You hold that one's own
happiness is the highest end, and that self-sacrifice is immoral. Does
this apply to love as well as work?
RAND: To love
more than to anything else. When you are in love, it means that the person
you love is of great personal, selfish importance to you and to your life.
If you were selfless, it would have to mean that you derive no personal
pleasure or happiness from the company and the existence of the person you
love, and that you are motivated only by self-sacrificial pity for that
person's need of you. I don't have to point out to you that no one would
be flattered by, nor would accept, a concept of that kind. Love is not
self-sacrifice, but the most profound assertion of your own needs and
values. It is for your own happiness that you need the person you love,
and that is the greatest compliment, the greatest tribute you can pay to
that person.
PLAYBOY: You have denounced the
puritan notion that physical love is ugly or evil; yet you have written
that "Indiscriminate desire and unselective indulgence are possible only
to those who regard sex and themselves as evil." Would you say that
discriminate and selective indulgence in sex is
moral?
RAND: I would say that a selective and
discriminate sex life is not an indulgence. The term indulgence implies
that it is an action taken lightly and casually. I say that sex is one of
the most important aspects of man's life and, therefore, must never be
approached lightly or casually. A sexual relationship is proper only on
the ground of the highest values one can find in a human being. Sex must
not be anything other than a response to values. And that is why I
consider promiscuity immoral. Not because sex is evil, but because sex is
too good and too important.
PLAYBOY: Does this
mean, in your view, that sex should involve only married
partners?
RAND: Not necessarily. What sex should
involve is a very serious relationship. Whether that relationship should
or should not become a marriage is a question which depends on the
circumstances and the context of the two persons' lives. I consider
marriage a very important institution, but it is important when and if two
people have found the person with whom they wish to spend the rest of
their lives—a question of which no man or woman can be automatically
certain. When one is certain that one's choice is final, then marriage is,
of course, a desirable state. But this does not mean that any relationship
based on less than total certainty is improper. I think the question of an
affair or a marriage depends on the knowledge and the position of the two
persons involved and should be left up to them. Either is moral, provided
only that both parties take the relationship seriously and that it is
based on values.
PLAYBOY: As one who champions the
cause of enlightened self-interest, how do you feel about dedicating one's
life to hedonistic self-gratification?
RAND: I am
profoundly opposed to the philosophy of hedonism. Hedonism is the doctrine
which holds that the good is whatever gives you pleasure and, therefore,
pleasure is the standard of morality. Objectivism holds that the good must
be defined by a rational standard of value, that pleasure is not a first
cause, but only a consequence, that only the pleasure which proceeds from
a rational value judgment can be regarded as moral, that pleasure, as
such, is not a guide to action nor a standard of morality. To say that
pleasure should be the standard of morality simply means that whichever
values you happen to have chosen, consciously or subconsciously,
rationally or irrationally, are right and moral. This means that you are
to be guided by chance feelings, emotions and whims, not by your mind. My
philosophy is the opposite of hedonism. I hold that one cannot achieve
happiness by random, arbitrary or subjective means. One can achieve
happiness only on the basis of rational values. By rational values, I do
not mean anything that a man may arbitrarily or blindly declare to be
rational. It is the province of morality, of the science of ethics, to
define for men what is a rational standard and what are the rational
values to pursue.
PLAYBOY: You have said that the
kind of man who spends his time running after women is a man who "despises
himself." Would you elaborate?
RAND: This type of
man is reversing cause and effect in regard to sex. Sex is an expression
of a man's self-esteem, of his own self-value. But the man who does not
value himself tries to reverse this process. He tries to derive his
self-esteem from his sexual conquests, which cannot be done. He cannot
acquire his own value from the number of women who regard him as valuable.
Yet that is the hopeless thing which he
attempts.
PLAYBOY: You attack the idea that sex is
"impervious to reason." But isn't sex a nonrational biological
instinct?
RAND: No. To begin with, man does not
possess any instincts. Physically, sex is merely a capacity. But how a man
will exercise this capacity and whom he will find attractive depends on
his standard of value. It depends on his premises, which he may hold
consciously or subconsciously, and which determine his choices. It is in
this manner that his philosophy directs his sex
life.
PLAYBOY: Isn't the individual equipped with
powerful, nonrational biological drives?
RAND: He
is not. A man is equipped with a certain kind of physical mechanism and
certain needs, but without any knowledge of how to fulfill them. For
instance, man needs food. He experiences hunger. But, unless he learns
first to identify this hunger, then to know that he needs food and how to
obtain it, he will starve. The need, the hunger, will not tell him how to
satisfy it. Man is born with certain physical and psychological needs, but
he can neither discover them nor satisfy them without the use of his mind.
Man has to discover what is right or wrong for him as a rational being.
His so-called urges will not tell him what to
do.
PLAYBOY: In Atlas Shrugged you wrote,
"There are two sides to every issue. One side is right and the other is
wrong, but the middle is always evil." Isn't this a rather black-and-white
set of values?
RAND: It most certainly is. I most
emphatically advocate a black-and-white view of the world. Let us define
this. What is meant by the expression "black and white"? It means good and
evil. Before you can identify anything as gray, as middle of the road, you
have to know what is black and what is white, because gray is merely a
mixture of the two. And when you have established that one alternative is
good and the other is evil, there is no justification for the choice of a
mixture. There is no justification ever for choosing any part of what you
know to be evil.
PLAYBOY: Then you believe in
absolutes?
RAND: I
do.
PLAYBOY: Can't Objectivism, then, be called a
dogma?
RAND: No. A dogma is a set of beliefs
accepted on faith; that is, without rational justification or against
rational evidence. A dogma is a matter of blind faith. Objectivism is the
exact opposite. Objectivism tells you that you must not accept any idea or
conviction unless you can demonstrate its truth by means of
reason.
PLAYBOY: If widely accepted, couldn't
Objectivism harden into a dogma?
RAND: No. I have
found that Objectivism is its own protection against people who might
attempt to use it as a dogma. Since Objectivism requires the use of one's
mind, those who attempt to take broad principles and apply them
unthinkingly and indiscriminately to the concretes of their own existence
find that it cannot be done. They are then compelled either to reject
Objectivism or to apply it. When I say apply, I mean that they have to use
their own mind, their own thinking, in order to know how to apply
Objectivist principles to the specific problems of their own lives.
PLAYBOY: You have said you are opposed to faith.
Do you believe in God?
RAND: Certainly
not.
PLAYBOY: You've been quoted as saying "The
cross is the symbol of torture, of the sacrifice of the ideal to the
nonideal. I prefer the dollar sign." Do you truly feel that two thousand
years of Christianity can be summed up with the word
"torture"?
RAND: To begin with, I never said that.
It's not my style. Neither literarily nor intellectually. I don't say I
prefer the dollar sign—that is cheap nonsense, and please leave this in
your copy. I don't know the origin of that particular quote, but the
meaning of the dollar sign is made clear in Atlas Shrugged. It is
the symbol, clearly explained in the story, of free trade and, therefore,
of a free mind. A free mind and a free economy are corollaries. One can't
exist without the other. The dollar sign, as the symbol of the currency of
a free country, is the symbol of the free mind. More than that, as to the
historical origin of the dollar sign, although it has never been proved,
one very likely hypothesis is that it stands for the initials of the
United States. So much for the dollar sign.
Now you want me to
speak about the cross. What is correct is that I do regard the cross as
the symbol of the sacrifice of the ideal to the nonideal. Isn't that what
it does mean? Christ, in terms of the Christian philosophy, is the human
ideal. He personifies that which men should strive to emulate. Yet,
according to the Christian mythology, he died on the cross not for his own
sins but for the sins of the nonideal people. In other words, a man of
perfect virtue was sacrificed for men who are vicious and who are expected
or supposed to accept that sacrifice. If I were a Christian, nothing could
make me more indignant than that: the notion of sacrificing the ideal to
the non-ideal, or virtue to vice. And it is in the name of that symbol
that men are asked to sacrifice themselves for their inferiors. That is
precisely how the symbolism is used. That is
torture.
PLAYBOY: Has no religion, in your
estimation, ever offered anything of constructive value to human
life?
RAND: Qua religion, no—in the sense of blind
belief, belief unsupported by, or contrary to, the facts of reality and
the conclusions of reason. Faith, as such, is extremely detrimental to
human life: it is the negation of reason. But you must remember that
religion is an early form of philosophy, that the first attempts to
explain the universe, to give a coherent frame of reference to man's life
and a code of moral values, were made by religion, before men graduated or
developed enough to have philosophy. And, as philosophies, some religions
have very valuable moral points. They may have a good influence or proper
principles to inculcate, but in a very contradictory context and, on a
very—how should I say it? —dangerous or malevolent base: on the ground of
faith.
PLAYBOY: Then you would say that if you had
to choose between the symbol of the cross and the symbol of the dollar,
you would choose the dollar?
RAND: I wouldn't
accept such a choice. Put it another way: If I had to choose between faith
and reason, I wouldn't consider the choice even conceivable. As a human
being, one chooses reason.
PLAYBOY: Do you
consider wealthy businessmen like the Fords and the Rockefellers immoral
because they use their wealth to support
charity?
RAND: No. That is their privilege, if
they want to. My views on charity are very simple. I do not consider it a
major virtue and, above all, I do not consider it a moral duty. There is
nothing wrong in helping other people, if and when they are worthy of the
help and you can afford to help them. I regard charity as a marginal
issue. What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a
primary virtue.
PLAYBOY: What is the place of
compassion in your philosophical system?
RAND: I
regard compassion as proper only toward those who are innocent victims,
but not toward those who are morally guilty. If one feels compassion for
the victims of a concentration camp, one cannot feel it for the torturers.
If one does feel compassion for the torturers, it is an act of moral
treason toward the victims.
PLAYBOY: Would it be
against the principles of Objectivism for anyone to sacrifice himself by
stepping in front of a bullet to protect another
person?
RAND: No. It depends on the circumstances.
I would step in the way of a bullet if it were aimed at my husband. It is
not self-sacrifice to die protecting that which you value: If the value is
great enough, you do not care to exist without it. This applies to any
alleged sacrifice for those one loves.
PLAYBOY:
Would you be willing to die for your cause, and should your followers be
willing to die for it? And for the truly nonsacrificial Objectivist, is
any cause worth dying for?
RAND: The answer to
this is made plain in my book. In Atlas Shrugged I explain that a
man has to live for, and when necessary, fight for, his values—because the
whole process of living consists of the achievement of values. Man does
not survive automatically. He must live like a rational being and accept
nothing less. He cannot survive as a brute. Even the simplest value, such
as food, has to be created by man, has to be planted, has to be produced.
The same is true of his more interesting, more important achievements. All
values have to be gained and kept by man, and, if they are threatened, he
has to be willing to fight and die, if necessary, for his right to live
like a rational being. You ask me, would I be willing to die for
Objectivism? I would. But what is more important, I am willing to live for
it—which is much more difficult.
PLAYBOY: In your
emphasis on reason, you are in philosophical conflict with contemporary
writers, novelists and poets—many of whom are self-admitted mystics, or
irrationalists, as they have been called. Why is this
so?
RAND: Because art has a philosophical base,
and the dominant philosophical trends of today are a form of neomysticism.
Art is a projection of the artist's fundamental view of man and of
existence. Since most artists do not develop an independent philosophy of
their own, they absorb, consciously or subconsciously, the dominant
philosophical influences of their time. Most of today's literature is a
faithful reflection of today's philosophy—and look at
it!
PLAYBOY: But shouldn't a writer reflect his
time?
RAND: No. A writer should be an active
intellectual leader of his time, not a passive follower riding any
current. A writer should shape the values of his culture, he should
project and concretize the value goals of man's life. This is the essence
of the Romantic school of literature, which has all but vanished from
today's scene.
PLAYBOY: Leaving us where,
literarily speaking?
RAND: At the dead end of
Naturalism. Naturalism holds that a writer must be a passive photographer
or reporter who must transcribe uncritically whatever he happens to
observe around him. Romanticism holds that a writer must present things,
not as they are at any given moment, but, to quote Aristotle, "as they
might be and ought to be."
PLAYBOY: Would you say
that you are the last of the Romanticists?
RAND:
Or the first of their return—to quote one of my own characters in Atlas
Shrugged.
PLAYBOY: What is your appraisal of
contemporary literature in general?
RAND:
Philosophically, immoral. Aesthetically, it bores me to death. It is
degenerating into a sewer, devoted exclusively to studies of depravity.
And there's nothing as boring as
depravity.
PLAYBOY: Are there any novelists whom
you admire?
RAND: Yes. Victor
Hugo.
PLAYBOY: What about modern
novelists?
RAND: No, there is no one that I could
say I admire among the so-called serious writers. I prefer the popular
literature of today, which is today's remnant of Romanticism. My favorite
is Mickey Spillane.
PLAYBOY: Why do you like
him?
RAND: Because he is primarily a moralist. In
a primitive form, the form of a detective novel, he presents the conflict
of good and evil, in terms of black and white. He does not present a nasty
gray mixture of indistinguishable scoundrels on both sides. He presents an
uncompromising conflict. As a writer, he is brilliantly expert at the
aspect of literature which I consider most important: plot
structure.
PLAYBOY: What do you think of
Faulkner?
RAND: Not very much. He is a good
stylist, but practically unreadable in content—so I've read very little of
him.
PLAYBOY: What about
Nabokov?
RAND: I have read only one book of his
and a half—the half was Lolita, which I couldn't finish. He is a brilliant
stylist, he writes beautifully, but his subjects, his sense of life, his
view of man, are so evil that no amount of artistic skill can justify
them.
PLAYBOY: As a novelist, do you regard
philosophy as the primary purpose of your
writing?
RAND: No. My primary purpose is the
projection of an ideal man, of man "as he might be and ought to be."
Philosophy is the necessary means to that
end.
PLAYBOY: In your early novel,
Anthem, your protagonist declares, "It is my will which chooses,
and the choice of my will is the only edict I respect." Isn't this
anarchism? Is one's own desire or will the only law one must
respect?
RAND: Not one's own will. This is, more
or less, a poetic expression made clear by the total context of the story
in Anthem. One's own rational judgment. You see, I use the term
free will in a totally different sense from the one usually attached to
it. Free will consists of man's ability to think or not to think. The act
of thinking is man's primary act of choice. A rational man will never be
guided by desires or whims, only by values based on his rational judgment.
That is the only authority he can recognize. This does not mean anarchy,
because, if a man wants to live in a free, civilized society, he would, in
reason, have to choose to observe the laws, when those laws are objective,
rational and valid. I have written an article on this subject for The
Objectivist Newsletter—on the need and proper function of a
government.
PLAYBOY: What, in your view, is the
proper function of a government?
RAND: Basically,
there is really only one proper function: the protection of individual
rights. Since rights can be violated only by physical force, and by
certain derivatives of physical force, the proper function of government
is to protect men from those who initiate the use of physical force: from
those who are criminals. Force, in a free society, may be used only in
retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. This is the
proper task of government: to serve as a policeman who protects men from
the use of force.
PLAYBOY: If force may be used
only in retaliation against force, does the government have the right to
use force to collect taxes, for example, or to draft
soldiers?
RAND: In principle, I believe that
taxation should be voluntary, like everything else. But how one would
implement this is a very complex question. I can only suggest certain
methods, but I would not attempt to insist on them as a definitive answer.
A government lottery, for instance, used in many countries in Europe, is
one good method of voluntary taxation. There are others. Taxes should be
voluntary contributions for the proper governmental services which people
do need and therefore would be and should be willing to pay for—as they
pay for insurance. But, of course, this is a problem for a distant future,
for the time when men will establish a fully free social system. It would
be the last, not the first, reform to advocate. As to the draft, it is
improper and unconstitutional. It is a violation of fundamental rights, of
a man's right to his own life. No man has the right to send another man to
fight and die for his, the sender's, cause. A country has no right to
force men into involuntary servitude. Armies should be strictly voluntary;
and, as military authorities will tell you, volunteer armies are the best
armies.
PLAYBOY: What about other public needs? Do
you consider the post office, for example, a legitimate function of
government?
RAND: Now let's get this straight. My
position is fully consistent. Not only the post office, but streets,
roads, and above all, schools, should all be privately owned and privately
run. I advocate the separation of state and economics. The government
should be concerned only with those issues which involve the use of force.
This means: the police, the armed services, and the law courts to settle
disputes among men. Nothing else. Everything else should be privately run
and would be much better run.
PLAYBOY: Would you
create any new government departments or
agencies?
RAND: No, and I truly cannot discuss
things that way. I am not a government planner nor do I spend my time
inventing Utopias. I'm talking about principles whose practical
applications are clear. If I have said that I am opposed to the initiation
of force, what else has to be discussed?
PLAYBOY:
What about force in foreign policy? You have said that any free nation had
the right to invade Nazi Germany during World War
II…
RAND:
Certainly.
PLAYBOY: …And that any free nation
today has the moral right—though not the duty—to invade Soviet Russia,
Cuba, or any other "slave pen." Correct?
RAND:
Correct. A dictatorship—a country that violates the rights of its own
citizens—is an outlaw and can claim no
rights.
PLAYBOY: Would you actively advocate that
the United States invade Cuba or the Soviet
Union?
RAND: Not at present. I don't think it's
necessary. I would advocate that which the Soviet Union fears above all
else: economic boycott. I would advocate a blockade of Cuba and an
economic boycott of Soviet Russia; and you would see both those regimes
collapse without the loss of a single American
life.
PLAYBOY: Would you favor U.S. withdrawal
from the United Nations?
RAND: Yes. I do not
sanction the grotesque pretense of an organization allegedly devoted to
world peace and human rights, which includes Soviet Russia, the worst
aggressor and bloodiest butcher in history, as one of its members. The
notion of protecting rights, with Soviet Russia among the protectors, is
an insult to the concept of rights and to the intelligence of any man who
is asked to endorse or sanction such an organization. I do not believe
that an individual should cooperate with criminals, and, for all the same
reasons, I do not believe that free countries should cooperate with
dictatorships.
PLAYBOY: Would you advocate
severing diplomatic relations with Russia?
RAND:
Yes.
PLAYBOY: How do you feel about the test-ban
treaty which was recently signed?
RAND: I agree
with Barry Goldwater's speech on this subject on the Senate floor. The
best military authorities, and above all, the best scientific authority,
Dr. Teller, the author of the hydrogen bomb, have stated that this treaty
is not merely meaningless but positively dangerous to America's
defense.
PLAYBOY: If Senator Goldwater is
nominated as the Republican presidential candidate this July, would you
vote for him?
RAND: At present, yes. When I say
"at present," I mean the date when this interview is being recorded. I
disagree with him on a great many things, but I do agree, predominantly,
with his foreign policy. Of any candidates available today, I regard Barry
Goldwater as the best. I would vote for him, if he offers us a plausible,
or at least semiconsistent, platform.
PLAYBOY: How
about Richard Nixon?
RAND: I'm opposed to him. I'm
opposed to any compromiser or me-tooer, and Mr. Nixon is probably the
champion in this regard.
PLAYBOY: What about
President Johnson?
RAND: I have no particular
opinion about him.
PLAYBOY: You are a declared
anticommunist, antisocialist and antiliberal. Yet you reject the notion
that you are a conservative. In fact, you have reserved some of your
angriest criticism for conservatives. Where do you stand
politically?
RAND: Correction. I never describe my
position in terms of negatives. I am an advocate of laissez-faire
capitalism, of individual rights—there are no others—of individual
freedom. It is on this ground that I oppose any doctrine which proposes
the sacrifice of the individual to the collective, such as communism,
socialism, the welfare state. fascism, Nazism and modern liberalism. I
oppose the conservatives on the same ground. The conservatives are
advocates of a mixed economy and of a welfare state. Their difference from
the liberals is only one of degree, not of
principle.
PLAYBOY: You have charged that America
suffers from intellectual bankruptcy. Do you include in this condemnation
such right-wing publications as the National Review? Isn't that
magazine a powerful voice against all the things you regard as
"statism"?
RAND: I consider National
Review the worst and most dangerous magazine in America. The kind of
defense that it offers to capitalism results in nothing except the
discrediting and destruction of capitalism. Do you want me to tell you
why?
PLAYBOY: Yes,
please.
RAND: Because it ties capitalism to
religion. The ideological position of National Review amounts, in
effect, to the following: In order to accept freedom and capitalism, one
has to believe in God or in some form of religion, some form of
supernatural mysticism. Which means that there are no rational grounds on
which one can defend capitalism. Which amounts to an admission that reason
is on the side of capitalism's enemies, that a slave society or a
dictatorship is a rational system, and that only on the ground of mystic
faith can one believe in freedom. Nothing more derogatory to capitalism
could ever be alleged, and the exact opposite is true. Capitalism is the
only system that can be defended and validated by
reason.
PLAYBOY: You have attacked Governor Nelson
Rockefeller for "lumping all opponents of the welfare state with actual
crackpots." It was clear from his remarks that among others, he was aiming
his criticism at the John Birch Society. Do you resent being lumped with
the John Birchers? Do you consider them "crackpots" or a force for
good?
RAND: I resent being lumped with anyone. I
resent the modern method of never defining ideas, and lumping totally
different people into a collective by means of smears and derogatory
terms. I resent Governor Rockefeller's smear tactics: his refusal to
identify specifically whom and what he meant. As far as I'm concerned, I
repeat, I don't want to be lumped with anyone, and certainly not with the
John Birch Society. Do I consider them crackpots? No, not necessarily.
What is wrong with them is that they don't seem to have any specific,
clearly defined political philosophy. Therefore, some of them may be
crackpots, others may be very well-meaning citizens. I consider the Birch
Society futile, because they are not for capitalism, but merely against
communism. I gather they believe that the disastrous state of today's
world is caused by a communist conspiracy. This is childishly naive and
superficial. No country can be destroyed by a mere conspiracy, it can be
destroyed only by ideas. The Birchers seem to be either nonintellectual or
anti-intellectual. They do not attach importance to ideas. They do not
realize that the great battle in the world today is a philosophical,
ideological conflict.
PLAYBOY: Are there any
political groups in the United States today of which you
approve?
RAND: Political groups, as such—no. Is
there any political group today which is fully consistent? Such groups
today are guided by or advocate blatant
contradictions.
PLAYBOY: Do you have any personal
political aspirations yourself? Have you ever considered running for
office?
RAND: Certainly not. And I trust that you
don't hate me enough to wish such a thing on
me.
PLAYBOY: But you are interested in politics,
or at least in political theory, aren't you?
RAND:
Let me answer you this way: When I came here from Soviet Russia, I was
interested in politics for only one reason—to reach the day when I would
not have to be interested in politics. I wanted to secure a society in
which I would be free to pursue my own concerns and goals, knowing that
the government would not interfere to wreck them, knowing that my life, my
work, my future were not at the mercy of the state or of a dictator's
whim. This is still my attitude today. Only today I know that such a
society is an ideal not yet achieved, that I cannot expect others to
achieve it for me, and that I, like every other responsible citizen, must
do everything possible to achieve it. In other words, I am interested in
politics only in order to secure and protect
freedom.
PLAYBOY: Throughout your work you argue
that the way in which the contemporary world is organized, even in the
capitalist countries, submerges the individual and stifles initiative. In
Atlas Shrugged, John Galt leads a strike of the men of the
mind—which results in the collapse of the collectivist society around
them. Do you think the time has come for the artists, intellectuals and
creative businessmen of today to withdraw their talents from society in
this way?
RAND: No, not yet. But before I explain,
I must correct one part of your question. What we have today is not a
capitalist society, but a mixed economy—that is, a mixture of freedom and
controls, which, by the presently dominant trend, is moving toward
dictatorship. The action in Atlas Shrugged takes place at a time when
society has reached the stage of dictatorship. When and if this happens,
that will be the time to go on strike, but not until
then.
PLAYBOY: What do you mean by dictatorship?
How would you define it?
RAND: A dictatorship is a
country that does not recognize individual rights, whose government holds
total, unlimited power over men.
PLAYBOY: What is
the dividing line, by your definition, between a mixed economy and a
dictatorship?
RAND: A dictatorship has four
characteristics: one-party rule, executions without trial for political
offenses, expropriation or nationalization of private property, and
censorship. Above all, this last. So long as men can speak and write
freely, so long as there is no censorship, they still have a chance to
reform their society or to put it on a better road. When censorship is
imposed, that is the sign that men should go on strike intellectually, by
which I mean, should not cooperate with the social system in any way
whatever.
PLAYBOY: Short of such a strike, what do
you believe ought to be done to bring about the societal changes you deem
desirable?
RAND: It is ideas that determine social
trends, that create or destroy social systems. Therefore, the right ideas,
the right philosophy, should be advocated and spread. The disasters of the
modern world, including the destruction of capitalism, were caused by the
altruist-collectivist philosophy. It is altruism that men should
reject.
PLAYBOY: And how would you define
altruism?
RAND: It is a moral system which holds
that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is
the sole justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his
highest moral duty, value and virtue. This is the moral base of
collectivism, of all dictatorships. In order to seek freedom and
capitalism, men need a nonmystical, nonaltruistic, rational code of
ethics—a morality which holds that man is not a sacrificial animal, that
he has the right to exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to
others, nor others to himself. In other words, what is desperately needed
today is the ethics of Objectivism.
PLAYBOY: Then
what you are saying is that to achieve these changes one must use
essentially educational or propagandistic
methods?
RAND: Yes, of
course.
PLAYBOY: What do you think of your
antagonists' contention that the moral and political principles of
Objectivism place you outside the mainstream of American
thought?
RAND: I don't acknowledge or recognize
such a concept as a "mainstream of thought." That might be appropriate to
a dictatorship, to a collectivist society in which thought is controlled
and in which there exists a collective mainstream—of slogans, not of
thought. There is no such thing in America. There never was. However, I
have heard that expression used for the purpose of barring from public
communication any innovator, any non-conformist, anyone who has anything
original to offer. I am an innovator. This is a term of distinction, a
term of honor, rather than something to hide or apologize for. Anyone who
has new or valuable ideas to offer stands outside the intellectual status
quo. But the status quo is not a stream, let alone a "mainstream." It is a
stagnant swamp. It is the innovators who carry mankind
forward.
PLAYBOY: Do you believe that Objectivism
as a philosophy will eventually sweep the
world?
RAND: Nobody can answer a question of that
kind. Men have free will. There is no guarantee that they will choose to
be rational, at any one time or in any one generation. Nor is it necessary
for a philosophy to "sweep the world." If you ask the question in a
somewhat different form, if you say, do I think that Objectivism will be
the philosophy of the future, I would say yes, but with this
qualification: If men turn to reason, if they are not destroyed by
dictatorship and precipitated into another Dark Ages, if men remain free
long enough to have time to think, then Objectivism is the philosophy they
will accept.
PLAYBOY:
Why?
RAND: In any historical period when men were
free, it has always been the most rational philosophy that won. It is from
this perspective that I would say, yes, Objectivism will win. But there is
no guarantee, no predetermined necessity about
it.
PLAYBOY: You are sharply critical of the world
as you see it today, and your books offer radical proposals for changing
not merely the shape of society, but the very way in which most men work,
think and love. Are you optimistic about man's
future?
RAND: Yes, I am optimistic. Collectivism,
as an intellectual power and a moral ideal, is dead. But freedom and
individualism, and their political expression, capitalism, have not yet
been discovered. I think men will have time to discover them. It is
significant that the dying collectivist philosophy of today has produced
nothing but a cult of depravity, impotence and despair. Look at modern art
and literature with their image of man as a helpless, mindless creature
doomed to failure, frustration and destruction. This may be the
collectivists' psychological confession, but it is not an image of man. If
it were, we would never have risen from the cave. But we did. Look around
you and look at history. You will see the achievements of man's mind. You
will see man's unlimited potentiality for greatness, and the faculty that
makes it possible. You will see that man is not a helpless monster by
nature, but he becomes one when he discards that faculty: his mind. And if
you ask me, what is greatness? —I will answer, it is the capacity to live
by the three fundamental values of John Galt: reason, purpose, self
esteem.
© 1964
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