"Cultural Update" by Ayn Rand

From Boston, at Northeastern University's Alumni hall, this is Joan Morgan with the third in the spring 1978 season of Ford Hall Forum lectures. Tonight, the Forum presents author Ayn Rand speaking on the topic Cultural Update. And now here is the moderator of tonight's Ford Hall Forum, Emmanuel Gilbert. To introduce the speaker.

It. Good evening, good evening, and welcome to this third meeting of the spring session of the 1978 Ford Hall Forum season. It's a great pleasure to see you here, and I'm sure Ms. Rand was warmed, as all of us were here, by the standing ovation. I'm sure, too, that she doesn't understand why, but that's probably because she's never heard herself speak, and that's the problem. I told her that there were some of you out there at 9 o' clock this morning waiting in line to get in tonight, and she didn't quite believe it. But you can believe it now, I think. And now it is my duty, I suppose, to introduce Ms. Rand to you. It's not that easy a job. It's not that necessary a job. You're welcome. Indicate you know well who she is. She certainly, certainly the most popular speaker the Forum has ever had, and she's been with us. This is her 18th, 18th meeting of the Ford Hall Forum, and we look forward to the next 18 as well. So now, without any further discussion, may I present to you to tell you tonight of a cultural update, our perennially favorite, Ms. Ayn Rand.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm speaking here today on the assumption that I'm addressing an audience consisting predominantly of liberals, that is, of my antagonists. Therefore, I must begin by explaining why I chose to do it. Now, do you sense that something is off in that statement? If you do, you're right. This statement was the opening paragraph of the first talk I gave at this forum on March 26, 1961, 17 years ago. The talk I'm giving today should have been delivered last year on the occasion of the beautiful luncheons that the Forum gave for me. Unfortunately, I did not think of it until I was here, so I will deliver it now on the premise of Better late than never. This talk will give a brief survey of the lectures I delivered here with an answer to the question, have things changed since then? And if so, in what direction? Yes, my audience has changed. My audience tonight is not predominantly liberal or antagonistic, for which I thank you, but a change in the attitudes of an entire country takes somewhat longer. My first talk here was entitled the Intellectual Bankruptcy of Our Age. It dealt with the miserable state of modern culture caused by the intellectual's treason to the intellect, by their rejection of reason in line with modern philosophy, and their acceptance of primitive mysticism. I followed my opening statement by explaining that quote. In the 1930s, I envied the liberals for the fact that their leaders entered political campaigns armed not with worn out bromides but with intellectual arguments. I disagreed with everything they said, but I would have fought to the death for the method by which they said it for an intellectual approach to political problems. Today I have no cause to envy the liberals any longer. I'm still quoting Today the two camps are moving closer and merging. Just as the Republican and Democratic parties are becoming indistinguishable, so are their respective intellectual spokesmen. And while the conservatives are lumbering toward the Middle Ages in quest of a philosophical base for their views, the liberals, always the avant garde, have outdistanced them and are now galloping on the same quest towards India of the 5th century BC the original source of Zen Buddhism. Close quote.

Doesn't this sound contemporary? It does.

But the state of today's culture is now worse than that. It has disintegrated further, particularly in the loss of any pretense at dignity. In 1961, even then, Buddhism was discussed with a kind of pseudo scholarly seriousness. Today we see a proliferation of mystic cults of gurus, faith healers, meditations, born again revelations, astrological divinations of the most horribly primitive kind, offered openly, crudely, cynically. Our culture is still bankrupt, but it's not militantly so. It's routinely bankrupt, like a pauper resigned to his shabbiness and not giving a damn any longer. My second talk at this forum was one of my most important. It was given on December 17, 1961. I remember a small incident that I found very eloquent and amusing in a sad kind of way. When I reached the old Conservatory of Music, where the forum was then being held, I saw a line of people stretching for blocks, waiting in the cold for the doors to open. My cab driver wondered aloud at who was appearing that night. I could not resist saying, I am. I'm giving a talk. He looked at me with curiosity and asked about what I said. The title is America's Persecuted Minority. Big Business. I cannot quite convey the complete incredulity of his voice when he repeated, big business. That's right, I said, getting out of the cab. That cab driver's shocked astonishment illustrates and sums up what is wrong with the situation I discussed in that talk. America's terrible injustice toward businessmen. My subject specifically was antitrust laws. The nightmare collection of undefinable, unenforceable, non objective contradictions which, more than any other kind of legislation, has destroyed the freedom and independence of American businessmen. I said, quote, whenever in any era, culture or society you encounter the phenomenon of prejudice, injustice, persecution and blind and reasoning hatred directed at some minority group. Look for the gang that has something to gain from that persecution. Look for those who have a vested interest in the destruction of these particular sacrificial victims. Invariably, you will find that the persecuted minority serves as a scapegoat for some movement that does not want the nature of its own goals to be known. Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation's troubles and use as a justification for its own demands for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie. In Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people. In America, it is the businessman. Close quote. Toward the end of that talk, I said, ladies and gentlemen, if you care about justice to minority groups, remember that businessmen are a small minority, a very small minority. If you consider the total number of all the uncivilized hordes on earth, remember how much you owe to this minority and what disgraceful persecution it is enduring. Remember also that the smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. Close quote. How does this issue stand today? It has become much worse. There are no sensational antitrust cases such as the General electric case of 1961. As far as the public is concerned, the persecutions and destructions take place silently, as well as the deals, the threats, the compromises, the surrenders. The position of businessmen as scapegoats has not changed. The attacks, the insults, the denunciations are as crude and unjust as ever. The scale of the offenses, however, has shrunk to some extent. In conjunction with the shrinking stature of today's politicians. Businessmen are screamed at and battered with fines for such crimes as illegal campaign contributions, contributions to domestic politicians, or the bribing of foreign politicians for the privilege of doing business is in some two by four, not fully developed or never to be developed country. It should be obvious that in this sort of bribery, the guilty person is the man who extorts payments at the point of a gun, threatening to destroy the victim's livelihood which he has the power to do. That is the politician and not the victim who is forced to Pay, that is the businessman. Yet in today's alleged morality, it is the businessman who is proclaimed guilty by sundry politicians who are left untouched. Observe in the context of today's so called energy crisis that the sweet Mr. Carter, who tries so hard not to offend anybody, did not mind snarling at the businessmen of the oil industry, spitting unspecified accusations in a manner he would not permit himself to use towards Soviet Russia or or Panama or Saudi Arabia or the Palestinian terrorists. I have it from a reliable source that today's economic situation requires a rise in the price of oil, that the oil industry desperately needs money to develop new sources of domestic production, and that most politicians know it, but do not dare allow that rice to go to industry and prefer to pour it down the drain of higher taxes. Whom are they scared of? The intellectuals? If you hear complaints about people not taking the energy crisis seriously, this gives you one of the reasons. It must also be noted that with very rare exceptions, today's businessmen have shrunk in stature like their enemies during the last couple of decades. Few of them are advocates of capitalism. Fewer still are advocates of anything at all. Too many of them are opposed to deliberation of business from government controls. Most of them are pragmatists in the full philosophical sense of that term, whether they know it or not, which means that they live, think and function on the range of the moment. They have lost the ability as well as the freedom to plan for the future. Well, they are the products of the same universities as the rest of this country. My third talk was given on December 16, 1962. It was entitled the Fascist New Frontier. Its subject was the fascist rather than socialist nature of the Kennedy administration. Fascism and socialism, of course, are merely variations of the same statism with the same altruistic collective base. As I said in that talk, quote, under both system sacrifice is invoked as a magic omnipotent solution in any crisis, and the public good is the altar on which victims are immolated. But there are stylistic differences of emphasis. The socialist communist axis keeps promising to achieve abundance, material comfort and security for its victims in some indeterminate future. The fascist Nazi axis scorns material comfort and security and keeps extolling some undefined sort of spiritual duty, service and conquest. The socialist communist axis offers its victims an alleged social ideal. The fascist Nazi axis of offers nothing but loose talk about some unspecified form of racial or national greatness. The socialist communist axis proclaims some grandiose economic plan which keeps receding year by year. The fascist Nazi axis merely extols Leadership, leadership without purpose, program or direction, and power for power's sake. Close quote. I gave some truly horrendous quotations from Mr. Kennedy's speeches and from the statements of his new frontiersmen such as Newton and Mino, who struggled but failed to establish total control of television and radio. A certain aspect of that period has changed through the years. The Kennedy administration was the the last ideological administration of modern times. This explains, perhaps, the intellectual's exaggerated, over glamorized affection for the Kennedy years. Curiously enough, the ideological struggle conducted by Mr. Kennedy, his advisors and his speechwriters was aimed at the destruction of ideology as such, that is, of political philosophy. Illusions, truisms, stereotypes, myths, cliches, platitudes, slogans, labels, incantations, rhetoric were the terms Mr. Kennedy used to designate principles, or the man who raised the obstacle of principles in the path of governmental action. These attacks were accompanied by a kind of systematic undercutting and corruption of the meaning of established American concepts. For instance, Mr. Kennedy permitted himself the mean little indignity of making a speech on the fourth of July entitled the Declaration of Interdependence. All this has changed. Today there is none of Mr. Kennedy's elegant malice. It was malice, but it was still intellectual. There is no ideology today, not even enough to fight it. One might say that Mr. Kennedy succeeded in destroying ideology, except that this achievement was not exclusively his. It was the achievement of his teachers in the philosophy departments of this country's universities. But the goal which the New Frontiersmen had in mind has collapsed. Instead of the blindly militant, crusading obedience to the government's power which they sought to establish, the American people now feel an immense distrust of the government and of the public interest. Even the tired altruist, collectivist slogans which are still dripping down on us from Washington are not received as enthusiastically as. As they used to be. My Next Talk, on April 19, 1964, was entitled Is Atlas Shrugging? It presented examples taken from real life of the trends predicted in Atlas Shrugged. Today that talk is almost dated. There are so many more examples of that kind on so much larger scale that it is almost frightening to watch. But the first signs of the philosophical influence of Atlas Shrugged are beginning to flicker here and there around us. On April 18, 1965, I gave a talk called the New Fascism Ruled by Consensus. My subject was Lyndon Johnson's administration and its attempts to sell the country on the notion of unistribution and consensus as political values or ideals. Intellectually, it was a ludicrous kind of period when all the Kennedy plans were put into effect, but were accompanied by an old ward healer's notion of inspirational propaganda. The Johnson intellectuals, if one may use such a designation, were busy institutionalizing pressure group warfare. I said, quote, it is clear what sort of unity or consensus that game requires the unity of a tacit agreement that anything goes, anything is for sale or for negotiation, and the rest is up to the free. For all of pressuring, lobbying, manipulating favor, swapping public relation given taking, double crossing, begging, bribing, betraying, and chance the blind chance of a war in which the prize is the privilege of using legal armed force against legally disarmed victims. This was close quote. This aspect of the political situation has not changed. It is not an achievement of Lyndon Johnson, but the inexorable development of a mixed economy. Mr. Johnson merely tried to be his voice. I believe that he actually believed it. But all of that consensus stuff is fortunately dated. Even today's pseudo intellectuals would not come out with arguments of that kind of the talk I gave on April 10, 1966, was entitled Our Cultural Value Deprivation. It dealt with the erosion of values in all aspects of man's existence in philosophy, in politics, in art. I compared the situation to the consequences of prolonged sensory deprivation which can destroy a man's mind. I said, quote, if men seek guidance, the very motives that draw them to philosophy, the desire to understand makes them give it up. And along with philosophy, a man gives up the ambitious eagerness of his mind, the quest for knowledge, the cleanliness of certainty. He shrinks the range of his vision, lowers his expectations in his eyes and moves on, watching the small square of his immediate steps, never raising his head again. He had looked for intellectual values. The emotion of contempt and revulsion was all he found. Close quote. Today the cultural situation is the same, only more so. The nihilism which had hoped to destroy cultural standards in order to replace them with new revolutionary ones has failed. No one accepts the avant garde movements, except perhaps the very rich suckers in the realm of modern painting. By default, all we have today in every cultural field is not new standards, but just plain mediocrity. This, of course, is the real motive behind all the collectivist or egalitarian movements. They do not seek to make the world safe for democracy, but to make it safe for mediocrity. In philosophy, linguistic analysis, which had been the fashion, is now passe. There are no fashions, no dominant trend, and anything goes so long as it is not pro reason. In literature, anything goes so long as it is unintelligible or unimportant. In art, anything goes. In politics, there's President Carter. Recently I met an elderly white Russian lady who had always had the manner of a grand dumb. I asked her what she thought of Carter. My dear, she answered, what is there to think about? The Wreckage of the Consensus was the title of my talk on April 16, 1967. As the title indicates, the subject was the failure and disintegration of Lyndon Johnson's policies. As part of the picture, I discussed the war in Vietnam, to which I was opposed, and the draft, to which I was also opposed. The intellectual shabbiness of that period with the ugly social mildew of the student movement, the hippies, the yippies and the plain terrorists, is still close enough for most people to remember. I shall quote just one brief paragraph from my talk, absurd terms in which the war in Vietnam is discussed. There are no stated goals, no intellectual issues, but there are apparently two opposing sides which are designated not by any specific ideological concepts, but by images which is appropriate to the primitive epistemology of savages. The hawks and the doves. But the hawks are cooing apologetically and the doves are snarling their heads off. Close quote. Whatever is left of those two groups, it is still true of both of them today. Today the cultural atmosphere is less virulent. It is merely a vacuum. There is, however, one significant improvement, the attitude of the college students. We hear once in a while the bitter complaints of the leftover leftists who. Of the leftover left school wine that college students are no longer interested in selfless social crusades, that they are concerned only with their selfish personal ambitions, with their desire to learn, to get a job, to pursue a career. To the extent that this is true, To the extent that this is true, it represents the best compliment one could pay to the present generation of college students. It is regrettable that the same concept cannot be said of the majority of their teachers. What is Capitalism? Is the title of the talk I gave on November 19, 1967. It dealt with the nature and the history of capitalism. It is part of my personal progress that I do not have to discuss this subject at length. My views and my arguments are well known, so I shall merely quote some paragraphs from that talk, the ones I regard as the most important, important quote corresponding to the four branches of philosophy. The four keystones of capitalism are metaphysically the requirements of man's nature and survival. Epistemologically, reason ethically, individual rights, politically freedom. Close quote and quote the moral justification of capital capitalism does not lie in the altruist claim that it represents the best way to achieve the common good. It is true that capitalism does, if that catchphrase has any meaning, but this is merely a secondary consequence. The moral justification of capitalism lies in the fact that it is the only system consonant with man's rational nature. That it is protects men's survival qua men, and that its ruling principle is justice. Close quote and quote the guiltiest men today are those who, lacking the courage to challenge mysticism or altruism, attempt to bypass the issues of reason and morality and to defend the only rational and moral sense system in mankind's history, capitalism on any grounds other than rational and moral. Close quote Today the attacks on capitalism seem muted, as all discussions are lifelessly muted, and we hear a great deal of unconscionable lip service paid to free enterprise or a free economy. But the ignorance of the actual nature, the principles, the working and the history of capitalism is as deep and dark as ever, particularly in our universities. The next talk I gave here on December 8, 1968 was one I regard as specially important. I analyzed and discussed discuss the papal encyclical on contraception, Humanae Vitae of Human Life. My talk was entitled Of Living Death in a Grossly Cruel and Irresponsible Manner. That encyclical forbids all forms of contraception except the so called rhythm method and proclaims that the purpose and the sole justification of sexual is procreation. I demonstrated in my talk that the ultimate goal of that monstrous doctrine is the spiritual emasculation and degradation of man, the extinction of his love of life. I said quote if man is forbidden to regard sexual enjoyment as an end in itself, he will not regard love or his own happiness as an end in itself. If so, then he will not regard his own life as an end in itself. If so, then he will not attain self esteem. It is not against the gross animal physicalistic theories or uses of sex that the encyclical is directed, but against the spiritual meaning of sex in man's life. By spiritual I mean pertaining to man's consciousness. It is not directed against casual mindless promiscuity, but against romantic love. Close quote end quote. In regard to the moral aspects of birth control, the primary right involved is not the right of an unborn child, nor of the family, nor of society, nor of God. The primary right is one which into the in today's public clamor on the subject, few if any voices have had the courage to uphold the right of man and woman to their own life and happiness. The right not to be regarded as the means to any end. Close quote in an. Thank you, thank you. In an earlier encyclical, Popularum progressio on the development of Peoples, Pope Paul VI denounced capitalism and advocated a global totalitarian state in which everyone would toil to provide the bare physical necessities of everyone else. At the conclusion of my talk I said, quote, deprived of ambition, yet sentenced to endless toil, deprived of rewards, yet ordered to produce, deprived of sexual enjoyment, yet commanded to procreate, deprived of the right to live, yet forbidden to die, condemned to this state of living death, the graduates of the encyclical Humanae Vitae will be ready to move into the world of Populorum progressio. They will have no other place to go. Close quote the anti contraception doctrine was regarded as old fashioned in 1968, 10 years ago, and few people supported it or took it seriously. But it has come back to life violently and viciously. Today's anti abortion campaign is so obscenely evil a phenomenon that I find it difficult to understand or to believe it. One might ascribe that campaign to the psychology of medieval gargoyles, but in the 20th century in the United States there is only one essential question in this issue. Since a woman is not an animal and if she is conscientious, cannot abandon her young, the matter of childbirth means the surrender of her entire life to the drudgery of rearing a child and the surrender of her man's life as well, if he too is conscientious. By what infernal impertinence do some females assume the right to dispose of the lives of others in this manner? Don't tell me about an eight months old fetus. What is involved here is an embryo. That is a piece of protoplasm to which a human lifetime is to be sacrificed. Don't tell me about that protoplasm's rights. It hasn't any. And don't tell me that that abominable movement which seeks to immolate the lives of countless human being is called a pro life life movement. That is merely. That is merely an instance of the big lie if you ever saw one. I cannot claim fully to understand the motives of that movement's adherence. Their minds are obviously the opposite of.

Mine.

To say the least. But of one aspect I am certain. Part of their motive is hatred. A frightening kind of hatred of the good for being the good. Specifically hatred of happiness. That hatred comes from tribalist conformity, from the brain of a rotten person thinking, since I obeyed my tribe and bore children. Let every woman do the same. Let no woman have a happy, successful or significant life. Oh sure, some mothers can have significant lives, but those are mothers by choice and they do not join anti abortion movements. It is truly shameful that this particular violation of rights is perpetrated by today's conservatives. It is one more proof of the fact that whatever the conservatives seek to conserve, it is not capitalism, nor freedom, nor individual rights. My next talk on December 9, 1969 was entitled Apollo and Dionysus. It dealt with the issue of reason versus emotion as exemplified by by the glorious achievement of Apollo 11's flight to the moon versus the mindless, senseless, muddy mess of the hippies Woodstock Music Festival. I said, quote, the most profound breach in this country is not between the rich and the poor, but between the people and the intellectuals. In their view of life, the American people are are predominantly Apollonian. The mainstream intellectuals are Dionysian. This means the people are reality oriented, common sense oriented, technology oriented. The intellectuals call this materialistic and middle class. The intellectuals are emotion oriented and seek in panic and escape from a reality they are unable to deal with and from a technological civilization that ignores their feelings. Close quote I stress the fact that the hippies were not daring revolutionaries set against the establishment or brave exponents of a new culture, but abject conformists. I said, quote, the hippies were taught by their parents, their neighbors, their tabloids and their college professors that faith, instinct and emotion are superior to reason. And they obeyed. They were told that material concerns are evil, that the state or the Lord will provide, that the lilies of the field do not toil. And they obeyed. They were taught that love, indiscriminate love for one's fellow man is the highest virtue. And they obeyed. They were told that the merging of oneself with a herd, a tribe or a community is the noblest way for men to live. And they obeyed. There isn't a single basic principle of the establishment which they do not share. There isn't a belief which they have not accepted. Close quote I pointed out that the best proof of the hippie's miserable psychological state is their drug addiction. Quote Is there any doubt that drug addiction is an escape from an unbearable inner state, from a reality one cannot deal with, from an atrophying mind one can never fully destroy. If Apollonian reason were unnatural to man and Dionysian intuition brought him to closer to nature and truth, the apostles of irrationality would not have to resort to drugs. Happy, self confident men do not seek to get stoned Close quote. Today the hippies are dead. At least as an alleged subculture or as a major public nuisance. They were killed by the McGovern campaign of 1972, or rather by the Democratic National Convention that nominated him. When the hippies were given national TV coverage and the country saw them for what they were, that was the end of the hippies, which is to the eternal credit of the American people. Among the subjects I have discussed at this forum, there are two which I find it difficult to discuss and embarrassing to argue about because they are so profoundly anti human, that is anti rational. One of them is the anti abortion movement, which I did discuss. The other is the ecology movement, which was the subject of my talk on November 1, 1970, entitled the Anti Industrial Revolution. I said, quote, observe that in all the propaganda of the ecologists, amidst all their appeals to nature and pleas for harmony with nature, there is no discussion of men's needs and the requirements of his survival. Man is treated as if he were an unnatural phenomenon. Man cannot survive in a kind of state of nature that the ecologists envision, that is, on the level of sea urchins or polar bears. In order to survive, man has to discover and produce everything he needs, which means that he has to alter his background and adapt it to his needs. From the most primitive cultures to the most advanced civilizations, man has had to manufacture things. His well being depends on his success at production. The lowest human tribe cannot survive without that alleged source of pollution, fire. It is not merely symbolic that fire was the property of the gods which Prometheus brought to men. The ecologists are the new vultures swarming to extinguish that fire. Close quote end quote. Observe the grim irony of the fact that the ecological crusaders and their young activist followers are vehement enemies of the status quo. That they denounce middle class passivity, defy conventional attitudes, clamor for action, scream for change, and that they are cringing advocates of the status quo. In regard to nature. In confrontation with nature, their plea is live well enough alone. Do not upset the balance of nature. Do not disturb the birds, the forest, the swamp, the oceans. Do not rock the boat or even build one. Do not experiment. Do not venture. What was good enough for our anthropoid ancestors is good enough for us. Adjust to the winds, the rains, the men eating tigers, the malarial mosquitoes that sets aplies. Do not rebel. Do not anger the unknowable demons who rule. Rule it all. Close quote. What is the status of the ecology movement today? It is still going strong. Still providing bureaucratic jobs for powerful pressure groups still playing mischievous havoc with this country's industry and standard of living. But some of ecology's glamour seems to be fading as well as some of its cheap popularity. People are beginning to wonder about the wisdom of spending millions of dollars in order to protect the survival of endangered inch long fishes while human beings are are ravaged by unemployment and desperately needed industries are prevented by lack of funds from remaining in existence or from being started. Businessmen, the frontline victims of all sorts of ecological extortions, have not made any notable public protest. The protests have come from labor unions and from the NAACP who deserve credit for it. The Moratorium on Brains Moratorium on Brains my talk on November 14, 1971 dealt with Mr. Nixon's wage price freeze. Little need be said about the disastrous policy today we are paying for its economic consequences. I shall quote just one brief paragraph from my talk. Quote. If one needs factual proof of the danger of implicit promises, unnamed hopes, undeclared principles, I.e. of the futility and impracticality of playing at short range, Mr. Nixon is the proof. He is an immortal refutation of pragmatism. Close quote I said this in 1971. Mr. Nixon gave us another stronger proof a few years later. My next talk here was entitled A Nation's Unity. It was delivered on October 22, 1972, just a few weeks before the presidential election. The talk dealt with George McGovern's campaign and his openness status collectivist programs.

I said, quote to confront Americans with.

The patronizing kindness of a combined social worker and small time lord of the manor is such an impertinence that a landslide defeat is the least McGovern deserves for it. Close quote he got it. That Mr. Nixon did not deserve that landslide is a different matter. I would still vote for Nixon today as against McGovern. And it is not for Nixon, but against McGovern that people were voting in 1972. They were voting against the redistribution of wealth and all the other crudely open symptoms of statism that McGovern was offering. It was the first time that the American people had a chance to grasp the nature of statism and they voted accordingly. In this respect the situation is much better today. The country's turn to the right, which was first mentioned by commentators in 1972, is now a firmly established fact. It is still precarious. It is still without intellectual leadership. It can still be perverted by social.

Pathology such as the so called New.

Right or sidetracked by phenomena such as the present occupant of the White House. But the actual turn to the right, in the sense of a strong anti statistical activist trend is there among the people is growing. A trend against something is not enough. When and if it becomes a trend for capitalism, it will triumph. My talk on October 21, 1973, was entitled Censorship Local and Express and dealt with the Supreme Court decisions that established new and dangerous undefined rules for the censorship of pornography. That situation has not improved. There have been cases of unjust prosecutions, but no one can say what is just. Under the present rules. There should of course be no censorship. The talk I gave in October 1974 was entitled Egalitarianism and Inflation. Its subject was government as the cause of inflation, egalitarianism as the unspeakably inappropriate doctrine for a time of economic crisis like the present and for any time. Of course, this situation has grown considerably worse since 1974. My talk on April 11, 1976, the moral factor, dealt with the dismal influence of altruism on modern events. And last year, April 10, I spoke on global Balkanization, the pernicious spread of ethnicity and tribalism. These aspects of our culture remain unchanged, although altruism is getting a somewhat less enthusiastic response than it got in the past. Well, that's my record at the Ford Hall Forum. Thank you. What conclusions do I draw from from it? First, a confirmation of what I knew before I started, that the heart of the battle lies in philosophy. Observe the variety of the issues and events I discussed. Observe that they varied only in journalistic detail. In essence, they remain the same. Whether you fight the New Deal or the New Frontier or the hippies or the ecologist, the enemy is still mysticism, altruism, collectivism, statism. And you have to know how to recognize them. The only cause worth living and fighting for is reason. Egoism, individualism, capitalism. Nothing less can win. Second, 17 years is a long period time in the life of a person, but it's only a moment, a very brief moment in history. So I'm happy to be able to see the reassertion and possibly the rebirth of the American spirit. Historically, it was a very rapid development. Third, do I take any credit for it? Yes, some.

Thank you.

Thank you. Objectivism is the only philosophy that gives a clear theoretical direction out of today's vacuum. Fourth, what do we do next? I don't think it's up to me any longer. It is up to you. Thank you.

We'll Pause now for 10 seconds to allow stations to identify themselves. You're listening to the Ford Hall Forum on stations of the Eastern Public Radio Network. Now back to the Ford Hall Forum and author Ayn Rand with moderator Emmanuel Gilbert.

Thank you, Ms. Rand. We live in a time when so many leaders in so many fields are busy rewriting what they said or denying that they said it or claiming they were misquoted. It's refreshing to have you go through nearly two decades of things you said and said in public and repeat them now. And it's delightful to see how they stand up after all this time. Now, let's have some questions in the rear. Guests, please. The gentleman asks, is it moral for a businessman to sell goods to our governments and to foreign governments when the source of the funds is expropriated funds?

Yes, of course it is. To the extent to which it is moral for him to exist, he cannot accept moral responsibility for actions or policies over which he has no power and no control at all. The question of should he deal with foreign governments is of course different. There you would have to to judge each individual case according to the nature of the particular foreign government. Because I think that it is totally immoral to deal with Soviet Russia as it was to deal with Nazi Germany or with any real dictatorship. But the same considerations do not apply to your own country. So long as it's not a dictatorship. Government money is a appropriated funds, if you regard that way will be correct because it's tax money. Nevertheless, it is the moral blame for it falls on the government and on the advocates of taxation, not on the businessman who has to exist and do his job honestly. It is not his job qua businessman to worry about about the funds of the government. It is his job as businessman in politics to advocate against government power and taxation, which today, unfortunately, he doesn't do.

All right.

More questions. Yes, sir. Could you comment on the impact that objectivism has had on psychology and what the cultural effect of that impact might be? Would you comment please on the impact of objectivism on psychology and what its cultural impact has been?

The cultural impact of psychology or of objectivism?

The effect of Objectivism's impact on the science of psychology? The cultural effect of objectivism?

I truly couldn't say from the more obvious phenomena in the field of psychology. It had no effect whatever. The majority of them do not seem to know that such a thing as the mind exists or that. And if so, I don't think that they could hear about or know what.

They'Re here hearing in regard to objectivism.

Yes, please.

There are exceptions, of course, but none that I could name in print.

Yes, please. I took a brief survey of the audience before the. Before the talk began tonight. And you can count the number of blacks on fingertip of your hand. Can you comment on why the blacks do not seem to take up objectivism?

I am not a racist.

May I repeat it? Would you comment please on the fact that blacks do not apparently follow objectivism, are interested in it?

I can only say that I am very proud of one or two blacks or of any small number who might be. Be here and whom I know personally because it is much harder for them to preserve their dignity and to remain individualist than it is for other groups. But your kind of survey is totally inappropriate here. We are not racist and we are not ethnics. And we do not appeal or try to be interested in any race, color or creed. Were interested only in human beings and their mind. If you claim that the blacks are not sufficiently interested, I would say it's a slur on the blacks and an insult to them. I hope you're wrong.

Yes, sir. Ms. Rand, what is the most dangerous philosophical concept a man can follow? Could you tell this young man what most dangerous philosophical concept a man could follow?

A man could follow a single concept. Actually, if I have to make a choice, I would say irrationalism, because it involves everything else.

Yes, please.

Ms. Rand, as a philosopher, what can you recommend as a course of study or as a place of study to students of philosophy? To frustrated students of philosophy?

Well, a frustrated objectivist psychology student would like to know what could you recommend as a philosophy as a course of study for her?

You mean what school?

Either a course of study. What. What type of courses or a place? A particular place. I am not a university teacher, and I would have to work out a.

Whole curriculum, which I have never done.

As to recommending any particular university where one could get a good grounding in objective philosophy, I can't tell you today. Let us hope that I may be.

Able to by next year because there.

Are certain signs that if they come.

True, will be very, very important.

Yes, sir. Yes, Ms. Rand? I'm one of your producers. I'm an engineer and I drove in here from Rochester, New York, to hear you this evening.

Thank you.

You recognize Mike? I have two questions. I'll try one there and another one later if I get one. If you get a chance later. One at a time. Yes, just one. All right, the first one. Do you recognize the Soviet Union's reported offensive military preparations as a threat to the people of the United States of America? And what should individual Americans do about this or allow our government to. That's three. But we'll, we'll wrap them into one. Do you regard the reported Soviet military buildup as a threat to the people of America? And what would you expect that the American people could do about it?

To begin with? It certainly is intended as a threat. How effective that threat is, I would not not attempt to guess. Because Soviet production is so ineffectual, so bad, that what will happen to their atom bombs and how they will explode before they are loaded on planes, I don't know. But certainly we cannot rely on their inefficiency. We should be prepared because almost any stud can arm himself. And it's quite possible and would be logical that the Soviet Union would be more efficient at instruments of death than at any other kind of production. The only thing that would stop them, and that's stopping them now is of course America's superior strength. And therefore what we should do is we should cut on anything except the defense budget.

Thank you.

I just want to add that what Mr. Carter is doing is disgraceful. It is truly disgraceful.

Thank you.

Next question, please. Yes.

Could you comment on the prospect for peace in the Middle east, especially in light of the negotiations between Sadat and Begin over the last several months?

Would you comment on the prospects for peace in the Middle East?

I truly have nothing to say about that. And I don't think I'm the only one. No one is saying anything that makes any kind of sense. The prospects are anybody's guess. And again, the only clearly wrong policy is Mr. Carter's.

He is very consistent in that respect.

Yes. Yes.

Could you comment on the natural march in Stoke, Illinois, considering the issue of freedom of speech versus the overt expression of gender.

Comment on the Nazi march on Skokie, Illinois?

No. That's a very complex issue. So long as the courts have interpreted the right to march on public streets as a form of freedom of speech and if it's permitted to communists or leftists or anyone else, unfortunately the Nazis have to be permitted. And in that respect I agree very reluctantly with the, what's it, aclu because they do not like the Nazis, but they find that have to fight for their right to march through the streets if we are going to have freedom of speech.

And if demonstrations are a form of.

Speech speech, then they have to be permitted. But what I challenge, and not only because of that particular case, I challenge that interpretation of demonstrations and actions as so called symbolic speech. That is the first time that this nonsense doctrine has actually come up in actual events. It Is nonsense. There is no such thing as symbolic speech. You do not have the right to parade through the public streets. You have the right of assembly. Yes. On your own property or on the property of your adherents or your friends. Nobody has the right to clog the streets. The streets are only for passage. I would have forbidden the hippies to lie down in the 60s. They would lie down across the street to show their views, to attract attention, to register a protest. If they were permitted.

Denazia should be permitted.

I would have forbidden both of them. You can speak.

Yes.

You cannot take action on public property.

Yes. Please. Rand, the philosophy professors that I've had.

That choose to comment on your works at all say they fail to find.

Argumentation for your views.

I'm sorry, I will not answer. So if you will repeat the question, I will just send here what they are. Prophecy.

No.

Would you like another question? And just let this one go because she will not answer it. All right. The questioner says he had heard from other professors with whom he had taken courses that Ms. Rand's arguments lacked substantiation. What was the word used?

They failed to find?

Argumentation. Argumentation. And Ms. Rand refuses to answer this question. Question. So, yes, please.

I mean, excuse me. Now I will answer just the audience.

Generally.

You who know my writing or have heard me speak, you know that I give more clearly thought out and logical reasons for my views than any anybody living or writing today. And I mean anybody.

You had your hand raised before. Yes.

Now I want to explain.

I'll get to you yet.

I want to explain what was improper about this young man's question and why. I will not answer him. You know, there was some time ago a petsy little scandal in Washington involving Hamilton Jordan. He had insulted the wife of the, I think the Egyptian ambassador. And this ambassador said a very wise thing. He said the person who repeats an insult is the person who insults me. That is what I am saying to this young questioner. He had no business repeating such a vicious, vicious lie to me. He had no business doing it if he knew me in private and certainly not in public. That is dirty. And I have never claimed that I'm broad minded enough to listen to every kind of swill. And that's the first time in the history of the Ford Hall Forum that anybody has permitted himself that much intellectual cheapness.

And now let's get on to your question. I hope.

Any aspect of the running of the.

Countries that you want, whether it be.

The economic issues or political issues or what have you.

Yes. So you want.

But would you change if you could.

If there were any aspect of this country's behavior that you could change, what would you change?

The universities, of course. I don't know whether you'd call that behavior. I wouldn't ever think in terms of people behavior, because behavior is only a consequence. You have to think in terms of people's ideas. So if I had to, if I had the shortcut to changing people's ideas fast, I would change the philosophy departments of today's universities.

Let's. Yes, please. Mr. Rad, would you make any comment on the upcoming Bacche controversy and how it might be contested on the university level in the classroom? The Bakke controversy. He asked for any comment you might have on its upcoming activity.

Oh, well, I have written on a similar case, and that is the one in California.

What was his name?

The funeral. Yes. I certainly wasn't supporting the funeral. And I would support Bakke in exactly the same way. Because if one is not a racist, one cannot have reverse discrimination quotas. Racial quotas are vicious in any form, at any time, in any place, and for any purpose whatsoever. The whole affirmative action program is vicious. It isn't profiting anybody. It isn't improving the lot of the minorities. It is giving jobs and patronage and pull to leaders of minority groups. And observe that only the races that got themselves organized get anything out of it. If you call it an advantage, I think it's as unfair, un American, and unjust as any current action. And I hope to God that the Supreme Court will be brave enough to forbid it once and for all in every form whatsoever. We are supposed to be colorblind and that's what we should be.

Yes, that's right. Would you share with us your views.

On the Panama Canal?

Would you share your views with us on the Panama Canal?

I don't have very many views on it. I can state it very simply. It's a disgrace. It's a disgrace because it's a pony issue. It is an issue of playing down to some kind of inferiority complex of a small nation and assaulting our own achievement. The Panama Canal was an American achievement and a very great one. It was built legally. The original contract was not only legal, but the whole country of Panama was established with American help because it seceded.

From the bigger country.

What is it? Colombia. From Colombia. And Americans helped them. Americans eliminated malaria from that whole isthmus. Before Americans came, nobody could use that isthmus. Now, today, it doesn't matter whether this canal is valuable or not or whether we intend to tend to build another one. That's not the issue. The issue is the abysmal self slap in the face of American achievement. Even the defenders of that policy, you know, are saying that the issue is only symbolic just to flatter the inferiority complex or the feelings of South America. Well, if that's the issue, we should stay on our dignity and maintain our feelings which we deserve and have earned. There is no reason to give that canal away and I hope they don't. I only want to add that I'm not a supporter of Governor Reagan because of a much more important issue, his stand on abortion. And therefore if I am against the Panama Canal, I don't to want want anyone to draw the implication that perhaps I am an admirer or a follower of Ronald Reagan. I am not.

Yes, yes, please, Mr. Ann, in your talking about social phenomena, you didn't speak at all about one of the biggest clutch of this movement around, which is the feminist movement. And I'd like to know why you haven't said anything about that. You made one quote talking about the use of a minority to accrue power. And it seems to me that the way feminists have used blacks is a way in which feminists have accrued power. Would you comment on that? The gentleman says in your discussion of collectivist groups you did not mention the feminist group and he questions why you didn't comment on it. And also would you comment on the aspect of they are using the black movement?

I am profoundly anti feminist to begin with. I have not mentioned them. Thank you. I have not mentioned them today because they did not happen to be included in any of my talks here at the forum. But I've written about the feminist movement in my magazine, the Objectivist. I am profoundly opposed to it because it is a phony movement to begin with, is Marxist leftist in origin. You say it's exploiting the black movement. It's exploiting everybody. It wants it cake and have it. It wants independence.

Pardon?

It wants independence at government help. Independence with a gun behind them. Independence with tax support for women extorted from whom? From men whose equals they claim to be. Well, men did not get established with the help of the government, not in this country. And if women want to be equal, and of course potentially they are, then they should do it on their own, not as a vicious parasitical pressure group, which is what they are. As you said before, it's now up to us towards the goal of realizing politically a system of laissez faire. Do you prefer piecemeal social engineering as that is working against specific issues, or do you think that a major revolution.

The question is, as I gather it, do you think a major revolution is necessary or can the solution be found piecemeal?

Neither. The major revolution did happen in 1776. You don't stage a revolution against a country, still build and still following those principles. And you don't fight piecemeal either. I don't know where you got the idea that I'm in favor of piecemeal fighting here. I've taken 17 years here, let alone what I have written outside of my speeches for the forum, telling you that it's no use fighting piecemeal. But the alternative is not blind revolutionary action. The only way to fight for any cause is intellectual, that is philosophical, that is in terms of fundamental principle. When you fight in terms of fundamental principles, it's as if you were a whole instead of a retailer in the realm of the intellect. You cover a whole field of activity or development by means of an appropriate principle which applies to that field, instead of fighting piecemeal, which is what your revolutionary activists are actually doing, and failing it.

Yes, please.

In today's political arena, do you regard.

Any man as, or woman as a promising figure?

In what realm are you talking about politics or what? In the political sphere, do you regard any particular person as especially promising?

Not today.

No. I'm sorry, not one.

Yes, please. Could you tell us what you're working on now? What are you working on now? Ms. Rand?

I might be able to tell you next year.

If I am here then. I had hoped that I might be.

Able to say it today, but I am working on something very problematic and very interesting.

You'll hear about it in the newspapers when and if it comes through.

If not, I'll tell you next year.

Okay.

Up in the balcony, please. Yes, yes.

Would you comment on what you see.

Happening with the world's energy and food.

Supplies, particularly with the statements of an.

Energy crisis, Short term, midterm, long term. That's more than an essay, that's a book you're asking for. In view of the energy crisis, what do you see for the food and the energy supply, short term and long range?

I don't see anything for any issue except in a return to some form of free enterprise as fast as possible, ultimately to come out with full, unrestricted, unregulated, laissez faire capitalism, which has never yet existed. But at least we have come close to it. Thank you. I don't think that any problem is going to be solved by Means of the mixed economy. Economy with a little bit of control and a little bit of freedom. You can't go on forever in that way. There is no way to solve anything and particularly not production, therefore not energy and not food under a dictatorship or a mixed economy. Either we go back to capitalism or I hope some of my works will be preserved through the dark ages that we're going to go through.

We have time for just a few more questions. Let's take one from way in the back there. Yes, sir. Consideration of the apparent stupidity and blunders of economic advisors in both North America and government. It seems apparent that it's either they haven't got a clue of what to do or is they are intentionally destruct. Would you comment to that please?

I can hear.

Tell me if I got. If I have it right. I may not have the gentleman comments on the the ineptness or the stupidity of the political advisors both in the North North America and South America. North America was considered United States and Canada. All right. And it seems to have the same kind of a similar mistake. And the question had to do with whether she thought they're doing it because they simply don't know any better or they're doing maliciously because they know better but they don't want to change it. Is this stupidity or malice which occasions this stupidity?

Of course you're flattering them if you think it's malice. It is that they don't know any better, but that wouldn't be a crime. What is a crime is that they don't want to know any better. After all, the people in politics are only the products, the last result of the educational and cultural trends in the country. The politicians are not the cause of anything. They're just the result. And the cashiers in and they're cashing in today on what they have been told which is nothing but collectivism and statism. They see that it doesn't work, but they're not able to think of something that would work. They can't return to capitalism. Nobody told them to.

Now a question from the center here. Yes, please.

Ms. Rand, I had read in a vague newspaper article and heard it nowhere else that President Carter signed something that the United nations gave him, a bill that he's going to try to put through Congress that people won't have any more property rights. Did you hear anything of this?

The lady hears that the President is about to sign something which would deprive people of sign something which would deprive people of property rights. Have you heard of this and would.

You comment on it? I have not and that sounds like a bad rumor mongering. It's a little bit too sensational, particularly the story that he got it from the United Nations. It isn't done that way and bad as our politicians are, they are not that stupid nor would it do him any good if he signed such a paper. So what do you really think the United nations can deprive us of all property rights?

You flatter them.

Time is running out. Just one more please.

Ms.

Friend, would you care to comment on what United States foreign policy towards South.

Africa is and ought to be?

And on the wider issue of how the United States foreign policy should be shaped with regard to authoritarian governments, not totalitarian in being. Would you comment please on United States policy towards South Africa and how it ought to be?

I have no particular opinion on that because I have not followed the details of our foreign policy. South Africa is a very, very bad situation in the sense that it's like an exaggeration of the faults in Western civilization generally. But brought to a caricature, those people in South Africa are literally mystical conservatives. They even have a law about an atheist should not be allowed to come to South Africa. So you know what I think of them? I think this is much worse than their racist policy, bad as it is. But the interesting thing is that their racial policies, their apartheid was established in South Africa not by the businessmen, not by employers, but by a liberal government. The people in favor of it were the poorer white people. The white labor established those racist laws. The capitalists in South Africa fought against it, but not very intellectually as they don't fight intellectually anywhere. It really is bad for business, these racist laws. But it's the white trash in effect.

That brought it into existence and it.

Still exists and it's vicious for everybody involved. However, turning the country over to a lot of tribes and destroying the white people is also no solution. I would have no solution at all about a country that far gone. But this would be the proper job of a philosopher Paraphrasing something that was said about Napoleon is not to get a country into that kind of condition is the answer what you do after it's a powder keg and where in which every party is wrong and nobody's right. I don't know.

After 18 years, Ms. Rand, I'm sure you don't know exactly just how a Fort hall forum feel about you as a group, but I'm sure you can feel and understand as we do their respect and their admiration for you. I thank you very much.

Tonight's Ford hall forum speaker has been author Ayan Rand speaking on the topic Cultural Update.