"Global Balkanization" by Ayn Rand

Welcome to the Ford Hall Forum. I am Emmanuel Gilbert, president of the Forum and your moderator for the evening. Now, you represent a very special audience tonight, for you've come to hear the Forum's most durable speaker. This is her 17th appearance at the Forum. She's also the most sought after speaker who comes to our platform, and she consistently heads the list of the world's great personalities who are requested by our members. I bid you welcome and I join you in anticipation of tonight's program on global Balkanization. Now, traditionally, the moderator introduces the speaker to the audience. However, introducing Ayn Rand to the Ford Hall Forum is like delivering a gallon of oil to Saudi Arabia. Earlier today, as many of you know, we held a luncheon in honor of Ms. Rand. And in place of the traditional introduction, I would very much like to read to you the text of the plaque which the Forum was very proud indeed to present to her. It reads, the Fort Hall Forum expresses its admiration and profound respect to Ayn Rand, novelist, editor, playwright and philosopher. On 16 occasions, and tonight, of course, is the 17th, she has graced the Forum's platform to present her views to overflow audiences. Always she has expressed her position with vigor and clarity, and responded to questions from the floor without hesitation or cant. In so doing, she has become a legend to Forum audiences, some of whom came to applaud vigorously, some of whom came to disagree violently, and all of whom remained enthralled by her presentation and by her intellectual brilliance. Her philosophy remains constant as she describes man as a heroic being with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm proud to present Ms. Ayn Rand.

Ladies and gentlemen, have you ever wondered about the process of the collapse of a civilization? Not the cause of the collapse. The ultimate cause is always philosophical. But the process, the specific means by which the accumulated knowledge and achievements of centuries vanish from the earth. The possibility of the collapse of Western civilization is not easy to imagine or to believe. Most people do not quite believe it, in spite of of all the horror movies about the end of the world in a nuclear blast. But of course, the world has never been destroyed by a sudden catastrophe. Man made catastrophes of that size are not sudden. They are the result of a long, slow, gradual process which can be observed in advance. Let me remind you, as I have said many times before, that there is no such thing as historical determinism. The world does not continue moving toward disaster. But unless men change their philosophical direction, which they still have time to do. The collapse will come. And if you want to know the specific process that will bring it about, that process, the beginning of the end is visible today in the New York Times of January 18, 1976, under the title Europe's Restive Tribes, Communists Seek. L. Salzburger is crying out in anxious bewilderment against a phenomenon he cannot understand. Quote it is distressing to return from Africa and find the cultivated old continent of Europe subsiding into its own form of tribalism, just as new African governments make concerted efforts to curb the power of tribes and subordinate them to the greater concept of the nation state state. Close quote by tribalism, Mr. Salzberger means the separatist movements spreading throughout Europe. Quote Indeed, he declares, it is a peculiar phenomenon of contemporary times that so many lands which had formerly been powerful and important seem obsessed with reducing the remnants of their own strength. There is no logical reason that Scotland, which was proud to be considered part of the British Empire's heart when the sun never set on it from Calcutta to Cape Town, is now increasingly eager to disengage from what is left of the grand tradition on an offshore European island. Close quote oh yes, there is a very logical reason why Great Britain is falling apart, but Mr. Salzburger does not see it, just as he does not see what was grand about that old tradition. He is the Times columnist specializing in European affairs, and like a conscientious reporter, he is disturbed by something which he senses to be profoundly wrong. But tending to be a liberal, he is unable to explain it. He keeps coming back to the subject again and again. On July 3, 1976, in a column entitled the Split Nationality Syndrome, he writes, quote the present era's most paradoxical feature is the conflict between movements seeking to unify great geographical blocks into federations or confederations and movements seeking to disintegrate it into still smaller pieces, to disintegrate into still smaller pieces the component nations trying to get together. Close quote he offers an impressive list of examples. In France there is a Corsican autonomy movement and similar movements of French Basques, of French Bretons and of French inhabitants of the Jura belt west of Switzerland. Quote Britain is now obsessed with what is awkwardly called devolution. This means water down autonomy and is designed to satisfy Welsh but above all Scottish nationalists. Close quote Belgium remains split quote by an apparently insoluble language dispute between French speaking balloons and Dutch speaking Flemish. Spain is facing demands for local independence. Quote In Catalonia and the northern Basque country, German speaking inhabitants of Italy's Auto adige yearn to leave Rome and submit to Vienna. There is a tiny British Danish argument over the status of the Faroe Islanders in Yugoslavia. There are continuing disputes between Serbs and Croats. There is also unrisale torment among Macedonians, some of whom on occasion revive old dreams of their own state, including Greek Salonica and part of Bulgaria. Close quote Please remember that these tribes and sub tribes which most of the world has never heard of since they have achieved no distinction to hear about, are struggling to secede from whatever country they are in and to form their own separate sovereign independent nations on their two back four stretches of the earth's crust. I must make one correction. These tribes did achieve a certain kind of distinction. A history of endless bloody warfare coming back to Mr. Salzburger. Africa, he points out, is torn apart by tribalism, in spite of the local government's efforts. And most of Africa's recent wars were derived from tribal causes. He concludes by observing, quote, the schizophrenia impulses bleaching Europe threaten actually to atomize Africa and all in the name of progress and unity. Close quote. In a column Entitled Western Schizophrenia, December 22, 1976, Mr. Salzberger cries, quote, the west is not drawing closer together, it is coming apart. This is less complicated but perhaps more distressing in North America than in Europe. Close quote. For myself I will add and more disgusting, Mr. Salvage continues, quote, Canada is apparently getting ready to tear itself asunder for emotional if illogical reasons which on a massive scale resemble the language dispute that continually splits Belgium. Close quote he predicts the possibility of a formal separation between French speaking Quebec and the rest of English speaking Canada and comments sadly and helplessly quote Whatever happens, it is hard to foresee much good for the west ensuing, which is certainly true. Now. What are the nature and the causes of modern tribalism? Philosophically, tribalism is the product of irrationalism and collectivism. It is a logical consequence of modern philosophy. If men accept the notion that reason is not valid, what is to guide them and how are they to live? Obviously they will seek to join some group, any group which claims their ability to lead them and to provide some sort of knowledge acquired by some sort of unspecified means. If men accept the notions that the individual is helpless intellectually and morally, that he has no mind and no rights, that he is nothing but the group is all and his only moral significance lies in selfless service to the group. They will be pulled obediently to join a group. But which group? Well, if you believe that you have no mind and no moral value, you cannot have the confidence to make choices. So the only thing for you to do is to join an unchosen group. The group into which you were born, the group to which you were predestined to belong by the sovereign, omnipotent, omniscient power of your body chemistry. This, of course, is racism. But if your group is small enough, it will not be called racism. It will be called ethnicity. For over half a century, modern liberals have been observing the fact that their ideas are achieving the opposite of their professed goals. Instead of liberation, Communism has brought the blood drenched dictatorship of Soviet Russia. Instead of prosperity, socialism has brought starvation to China and Cuba and India and Russia. Instead of brotherhood, the welfare state has brought the crumbling stagnation and the fierce elitist power struggle of Great Britain and Sweden and many other less obvious victims. Instead of peace, the spread of international altruism has brought about two world wars, an unceasing procession of local wars and the suspending of a nuclear bomb over the heads of mankind. Yet this record does not prompt the liberals to check their premises or to glance for contrast at the record of the social system, the last remnants of which they are so ferociously destroying. Now we are seeing another demonstration of the fact that their professed goals are not the motive of today's liberals. We are seeing a special kind of intellectual cover up. A cover up so dirty and so low that it makes Watergate look like a childish caper. Observe that ever Since World War II, racism has been regarded as a vicious falsehood and a great evil, which it certainly is. It is not the root of all social evils. The root is collectivism. But as I have written before in the virtue of selfishness, quote Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. Close quote. One would think that Hitler had given a sufficient demonstration of racism's evil. Yet today's intellectuals, particularly the liberals, are supporting and properly propagating the most virulent form of racism on earth. Tribalism. The COVID up that makes it possible lies in a single word, ethnicity. Ethnicity is an anti concept used as a disguise for the word racism. And it has no clearly definable meaning. But you can get a lead to its meaning if you hunt through a dictionary. The following are the results of my hunt through the Random house College Dictionary 1957, a book intended for young people. I found no such term as ethnicity, but I found ethnic, which is defined as follows. Quote Pertaining or peculiar to a population, especially to a speech group, loosely also to a race. Close quote. Under ethnic group, the definition given as sociological usage reads quote A group of people racially or historically related, having a common and distinctive culture as an Italian or Chinese colony in a large American city. Close quote I looked up the word culture. The definition given as sociological usage reads quote the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings which is transmitted from one generation to another. Close quote I looked up also the word tribe. The definition reads quote 1. Any aggregate of people united by ties of descent from a common ancestor, community of customs and traditions, adherence to the same leaders, etc. 2. A local division of a primitive or barbarous people. Close quote the meaning of the sum of these definitions is fairly clear. The term ethnicity stressed the traditional rather than the physiological characteristic of a group, such as language. But physiology, that is race is involved and mentioned in all but one of these definitions. So the advocacy of ethnicity means racism plus tradition, that is racism plus conformity, that is racism plus staleness. The acceptance of the achievement of individual by other individuals does not represent ethnicity. It represents a cultural division of labor in a free market. It represents a conscious individual choice on the part of all the men involved. The achievements may be scientific or technological or industrial or intellectual or aesthetic. And the sum of such accepted achievements constitutes a pre civilized nation's culture. Tradition has nothing to do with it is being challenged and blasted daily in a free civilized society. Its citizens accept ideas and products because they are true and are good, not because they are old, nor because their ancestors accepted them. In such a society, concretes change. But what remains immutable by individual conviction, not by tradition, are those philosophical principles which correspond to reality, that is, which are true. The old and the ancestral are the standards of tradition which supersedes reality, the standards of value of those who accept and practice ethnicity. Culture, in the modern sociologist view, is not a sum of achievements, but of ways of living transmitted from one generation to another. This means concrete, specific ways of living. Can you who are still the children of the United States, United States of America, imagine the utter horror of a way of living that does not change from generation to generation? Yet this is what the advocates of ethnicity are advocating. Is such a way of living compatible with reason? It is not. Is it compatible with independence or individuality? It is not. Is it compatible with progress? Obviously not. Is it compatible with capitalism? Don't be funny. What century are we talking about? We are dealing with a phenomenon that is rising out of prehistorical ages. Atavistic remnants and echoes of those ages have always existed in the backwaters of civilized countries, particularly in Europe. Among the old, the tired, the timid, and those who gave up before they started. Such people are the carriers of ethnicity. The ways of living they transmit from generation to generation consist in folk songs, folk dances, special ways of cooking, food, traditional kasips, and folk festivals. Although the professional ethnics would and did fight wars over the differences between their songs and those of their neighbors, there are no significant differences between them all. Folk art is essentially similar and excruciatingly boring. If you've seen one set of people clapping their hands while jumping up and down, you've seen them all. Now observe the nature of those traditional ethnic achievements. All of them belong to the perceptual level of man's consciousness. All of them are ways of dealing with or manipulating the concrete, the immediately given, the directly perceivable. All of them are manifestations of the preconceptual stage of human development. I quote from one of my own articles Quote the concrete bound anti conceptual mentality can cope only with men who are bound by the same concretes, by the same kind of finite world. To this mentality it means a world in which men do not have to deal with abstract principles. Principles are replaced by memorized rules of behavior which are accepted uncritically as the given. What is finite in such a world is not its extension, but the degree of effort required of its inhabitants. When they say finite, they mean perceptual. Close Quote this is from the missing link in the Ayn rand letter for May 7th and 21st, 1973. That article deals with the psycho epistemological roots of modern tribalism. In the same article I said quote John Dewey's theory of progressive education, which has dominated the schools for close to half a century, established a method of keeping a child's conceptual faculty and replacing cognition with social adjustment. It was and is a systematic attempt to manufacture tribal mentalities. Close quote A symptom of the tribal mentality's self arrested perceptual level of development may be observed in the trial Tribalist's Position on Language Language is a conceptual tool, a code of visual. Auditory symbols denote concepts. To a person who understands the function of language, it makes no difference what sounds are chosen to name things, provided these sounds refer to clearly defined aspects of reality. But to a tribalist, language is a mystic heritage, a string of sounds handed down from his ancestors and memorized, not understood. To him, the importance lies in the perceptual concrete, the sound of a word, not its meaning. He would kill and die for the privilege of printing on every postage stamp the word postage for the English speaking and the word post for the French speaking citizens of his bilingual Canada. Since. Since most. Take a look at those stems, by the way. Since most of the ethnic languages are not full languages, but merely dialects or local corruptions of a country's language, the distinctions which the tribalists fight for are not even as big as that. But of course it is not for their language that the tribalists are fighting. They are fighting to protect their level of of awareness, their mental passivity, their obedience to the tribe and their desire to ignore the existence of outsiders. The learning of another language expands one's abstract capacity and vision. Personally, I speak four or rather three and a half languages. English, French, Russian and the half is German, which I can reach, read, but not speak. I found this knowledge extremely helpful when I began writing. It gave me a wider range in choice of concepts. It showed me four different styles of expression. It made me grasp the nature of language as such, apart from any set of concretes. Speaking of concretes, I would say that every civilized language has its own inimitable power and beauty. But the one I love is English, the language of my choice, not of my birth. English is the most eloquent, the most precise, the most economical, and therefore the most powerful. English fits me best, but I would be able to express my identity in any western language. The tribalists clamored that their language preserves their ethnic identity. But there is no such thing. Conformity to a racist tradition does not constitute a human identity. Just as racism provides a pseudo self esteem for men who have not earned an authentic one, so their hysterical loyalty to their own dialect serves a similar function. It provides a pretense at collective self esteem, an illusion of safety for the confused, frightened, precarious state of a tribalist stagnant consciousness. The proclaimed desire to preserve one's language and or its literary works, if any, is a cover up in a free or even semi free country. No one is forbidden to speak any language he chooses with those who wish to speak it, but he cannot force it on others. A country has to have only one official language if men are to understand one another. And it makes no difference which language it is, since men live by the meaning, not the sound of words. It is eminently fair that a country's official language should be the language of the majority. As to literary works, their survival does not depend on political enforcement. But to the tribalists, language is not a tool of thought and communication. Language to them is a symbol of tribal status and power, the power to force their dialect on all outsiders. This appeals not even to the tribal leaders, but to the thick, touchy vanity of the tribal rank and five. In this connection I want to mention a hypothesis of mine which is only a hypothesis, because I have given no special study to the subject of bilingual countries, that is Countries that have two official languages. But I have observed the fact that bilingual countries tend to be culturally impoverished by comparison to the major countries whose language they share in part. Bilingual countries do not produce many great first rate achievements in any intellectual line of endeavor, whether in science, philosophy, literature or art. Consider the record of Belgium, which is French speaking in part, as against the record of France, or the record of Switzerland, a trilingual country, as against the record of France, of Germany, of Italy, or the record of Canada, as against the record of the United States. The cause of the poor records may lie in the comparative territorial smallness of those countries, but this does not apply to Canada versus the United States. The cause may lie in the fact that the best, most talented citizens of the bilingual countries tend to emigrate to the major countries. But this still leaves the question why the do they? My hypothesis is as follows. The policy of bilingual rule, which spares some citizens the necessity to learn another language, is a concession to and a perpetuation of a strong ethnic tribalist element within a country. It is an element of anti intellectuality, conformity and stagnation. The best minds withdrawn from such countries, they would sense, if not know it consciously, that tribalism leaves them no chance. But quite apart from this particular hypothesis, there can be no doubt that the spread of tribalism is an enormously anti intellectual evil. If, as I said, some elements of ethnicity did remain in the backyards of civilized countries and stayed harmless for centuries, why the sudden epidemic of their rebirth? Irrationalism and collectivism, the philosophical notions of the prehistorical eras had to be implemented in practice in political action before they could engulf the greatest scientific technological achievements mankind had ever reached. The political cause of tribalism's rebirth is the meaning mixed economy, the transitional stage of the formerly civilized countries of the west on their way to the political level from which rest of the world has never emerged, the level of permanent tribal warfare. As I wrote in my article on racism in the virtue of selfishness, quote the growth of racism in a mixed country economy keeps step with the growth of government controls. A mixed economy disintegrates a country into an institutionalized civil war of pressure groups, each fighting for legislative favors and special privileges at the expense of one another. Close quote When a country begins to use such expressions as seeking a Bigger share of the pie. It is accepting a tenet of pure collectivism. The notion that the goods produced in a country do not belong to the producers, but belong to everybody, and that the government is the distributor. If so, what chance does an individual have of getting a slice of that pie? No chance at all, not even a few crumbs. An individual becomes fair game for every sort of organized predator. Thus, people are pushed to surrender their independence in exchange for tribal protection. The government of a mixed economy manufactures pressure groups and specifically manufactures ethnicity. The profiteers are those group leaders who discover suddenly that they can exploit the helplessness, the fear, the frustration of their ethnicity. Brothers organize them into a group, present demands to the government and deliver the vote. The result is political jobs, subsidies, influence and prestige for the leaders of the ethnic groups. This does not improve the lot of the group's rank and file. It makes no difference to the hard pressed unemployed of any race or color what quota of jobs, college admissions and Washington appointments were handed out to the political manipulators from their particular race or color. But the ugly farce goes on with the help and approval of the intellectuals who write about minority victories. Here's a sample of the goal of such victories in the New York Times of January 17, 1977. A news story was headlined as follows, quote. Hispanic groups say they are inequitably treated in support for arts. Close quote. At the hearing on the subject, New York State Senator Robert Garcia declared, quote, what are really talking about is dollars and whether we are receiving a fair share of the revenues generated in this state. The purpose of the demands for state dollars was, quote, to assure the growth of non mainstream art forms, close quote. This means art forms which people do not care to see or. The recommendations reached at the hearing included the demand that, quote, at least 25% of the money goes to Hispanic arts. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what your tax money is being spent on. The new profiteers of altruism are not the poor, poor, the sick or the unemployed, but ethnic females swishing their skirts in old Spanish dances which were not too good even when they were new. This is a typical example of the motives and the voted vested interests behind the growth, the pushing and the touting of ethnicity. An interesting article was published in the British magazine encounter on February 1975. It is entitled the Universalization of Ethnicity and is written by Nathan Glaser, a well known American sociologist. It is quite revealing of the modern intellectuals attitude toward the spread of ethnicity. More revealing is what Mr. Glaser does not say than in what he does, he observes, quote the overwhelming majority of people are born into a religion rather than adopted, just as they are born into an ethnic group. In this respect, both are similar. They are both groups by ascription rather than achievement. There are groups in which one's status is immediately given by birth rather than gained by some activities in one's life. Close quote this is eminently and horribly true. There is a great deal to be said about the horrifying approach of a world dominated by people who prefer ascription to achievement and who seek a physiologically determined, automatic, medically given status rather than the status they have to earn. Mr. Glaser does not say it. He merely reports he is disturbed by the relationship of ethnic group to caste, but treats it merely as a problem of definitions. But of course, castes are inherent in the notion of ethnicity. Castes of superior and inferiors determined by birth, enforced and perpetuated by law, dividing people into aristocrats, commoners, etc. Down to untouchables. Mr. Glaser makes a true and profoundly important statement. Quote the United States is perhaps unique among the states of the world in using the term nation to refer not to an ethnic group but but to all who choose to become Americans. Close quote but he draws no conclusions from it. Yet it is extremely significant that the United States was the arch enemy and the destroyer of ethnicity, that it abolished caste and any sort of inherited titles, that it granted no recognition to groups as such, that it recognized only the right of the individual to choose the associations he wished to join. Freedom of association is the opposite of ethnicity. Mr. Glaser does not raise the question of the original American philosophy and of the relationship of its destruction to the rise of ethnicity. The focus of his interest lies elsewhere. He writes, quote the socialist hope for a transnational class struggle based on class identification never came to pass. Instead, it has been replaced by national and ethnic conflicts. Close quote end quote in most countries, national interests and ethnic interests seem to dominate over class interests. Mr. Glaser is baffled by this development. He offers some tentative attention, explanations with which he himself is not satisfied, such as, quote the trends of modernization, even while they do destroy some basis of distinctive culture and distinctive identity, create a need for a new kind of identity related to the old intimate type of village or tribal association. Close quote A modern technological society which includes nuclear bombs and space travel to be run by villages or by tribal associations. Mr. Glaser himself tends to dismiss theories of this sort and admits that he cannot find an explanation. Quote this is the heart of the darkness why didn't the major alliance of conflict within societies become class conflicts rather than ethnic conflicts? In most developing countries, Marxism remains the ideology of the students and often of the ruling group. But ethnicity is the focus around which identity and loyalty have been shaped. Close Quote Mr. Glaser comes closer to an answer when he observes that ethnicity has an irration appeal. But he takes it no further. He says instead, quote, it would seem that the rallying cries that mobilized the classes have in recent decades had less powers than the rallying cries that mobilized the races, tribes, religions, language users, in short, the ethnic groups. Perhaps the epidemic of ethnic conflicts reflects the fact that leaders and organizers believe they can get a more potent response by appealing to ethnicity than they can by appealing to class interest. Close quote True, leaders and organizers do believe this, but why? The answer to Mr. Glazer's question lies in the fact that Marxism is an intellectual construct. It. It is false, but it is an abstract theory and it is too abstract for the tribalist, concrete bound perceptual mentalities. It requires a significantly higher level of abstraction to grasp the reality of an international working class, a level beyond the power of a consciousness that understands its own village but has trouble treating the nearest town is fully real. No, the level of man's intelligence has not deteriorated from natural cause. It has been pushed down, retarded, stultified by modern anti intellectual education and modern irrationalist philosophy. Mr. Glaser does not see or is not concerned with any part of the sense of. It is obvious that he is disturbed by the spread of ethnicity, but he tries to hope for the best. And this leads him, in conclusion, to a truly unspeakable statement. After proposing some sort of solution in the form of, quote, either guaranteed shares for each group or granted rights for each individual and and each group, close quote he continues, quote the United States in the past seemed to find the approach in terms of guaranteed rights more congenial than the approach in terms of guaranteed shares. But recently Americans have begun to take individual rights less seriously and to take group shares more seriously. After I recovered from feeling sick at my stomach, I asked myself, What Americans has Mr. Glaser been observing or associating with? I do not know, but his statement is liable against an entire nation. It means that men are now ready to sell. They're considered rights for money, for a share of unearned money. In his last paragraph, Mr. Glaser observes that there was a time when, quote, the problems of ethnicity as a source of conflict within nations and between nations have generally appeared as simply A leftover, an embarrassment from the past. It is my conviction they must now be placed at the very center of our concern for the human condition. Close quote. He is right to fear such a prospect. There is no surer way to infect mankind with hatred, brute, blind, virulent hatred, than by splitting it into ethnic groups or tribes. If a man believes that his own character is determined at birth in some unknown, ineffable way, and the characters of all strangers are determined in the same way, then no communication, no understanding, no persuasion is possible among them. Only mutual fear, suspicion and hatred. Tribal or ethnic rule has existed at some time in every part of the the world and in some country. In every period of mankind's history. The record of hatred is always the same. The worst kinds of atrocities were perpetrated during ethnic including religious wars. A recent grand scale example of it was Nazi Germany. Warfare, permanent warfare, is the hallmark of traffic tribal existence. A tribe with its rules, dogmas, traditions and arrested mental development is not a productive organization. Tribes subsist on the age of starvation at the mercy of natural disasters. Less successful is in herds of animals. War against other momentarily luckier tribes in the hope of looting some meager horde is their chronic emergency means of surviving survival. The inculcation of hatred for other tribes is a necessary tool of tribal rulers who need scapegoats to blame for the misery of their own subjects. There is no tyranny force in ethnic rule, since it is an unchosen serfdom one is asked to accept as a value, and since it applies primarily, primarily to one's mind. A man of self esteem will not accept the notion that the content of his mind is determined by his muscles, that is by his own body, but by the bodies of an unspecified string of ancestors. Determinism by the means of production is preferable. It is equally false, but less offensive to human dignity. Marxism is is corrupt but clean compared to the stale, rank, musty order of ethnicity. As to the stagnation under tribal rule, take a look at the Balkans. At the start of this century, the Balkans were regarded as the disgrace of Europe. Six or eight tribes, plus a number of sub tribes with unpronounceable names, were crowded on the Balkan peninsula, engaging in endless wars among themselves, or being conquered by stronger neighbors, or practicing violence for the sake of violence over some microscopic language differences. Vulcanization, the breakup of larger nations into ethnic tribes, was used as a pejorative term by the European intellectuals of the time. Those same intellectuals were pathetically proud when they managed after war, World War I, to glue most of the Balkan tribes together into two larger countries, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. But the tribes never vanished. They have been popping up in minor explosions all along, and a major one is possible at any time. Nothing can be expected from tribalism except brutality and war. But this time it it is not with bows and arrows that the tribes will be armed, but with nuclear bombs. As a tiny preview of what tribalism would mean in a modern technological civilization, there is a story in the New York Times of January 23, 1977, which reports that the French speaking Canadians of Quebec had demanded the use of French in all official dealings, including at airports. But, quote, a federal court upheld a ban by the Federal Ministry of Transport on the use of French for landings at Montreal's two international airports. English is the language accepted at airports in every nation of the world. Close quote. Let me remind you of the recent terrible collision of two planes in the Canary Islands. Although all the personnel involved spoke English perfectly, the investigation. Investigations seem to indicate that the collision was caused by linguistic misunderstandings. But what is that to the Canadians of Quebec, or to IDI Amin of Uganda, or to any other ethnic tribalist who might demand that their language be spoken by every plane pilot in the world? Incidentally, that collision took place because the small airport was overcrowded with planes that could not land at a nearby major airport. The major airport had been bombed by ethnic terrorists who were seeking the independence of the Canary Islands from Spain. How long would the achievement of a technological civilization last under this sort of tribal management? Some people ask whether local groups or provinces have the right to secede from the country of which they are a part. The answer is on ethnic grounds. No. Ethnicity is not a valid consideration morally or politically, and does not endow anyone with any special rights as to other than ethnic grounds. Remember that rights belong only to individuals. And then there is no such thing as group rights. If a province wants to secede from a dictatorship or even from a mixed economy in order to establish a free country, it has the right to do so. But if a local gang, ethnic or otherwise, wants to secede in order to establish its own government and government controls, it does not have that right. No group has the right to violence, violate the rights of the individuals who happen to live in the same locality. A wish, individual or collective, is not a right. Now, is there a way to avoid the rebirth of global tribalism and the approach of another dark ages? Yes, there is, but only one way. Through the rebirth of the antagonist that has demonstrated its power to recognize relegate ethnicity to a Peaceful dump capitalism. Observe the paradoxes built up about capitalism. It has been called a system of selfishness, which in my sense of the term it is. Yet it is the only system that drew men to unite on a large scale into great countries and peacefully to cooperate across national boundaries. While all the collectivist interactions, nationalist one world systems are splitting the world into balkanized tribes. Capitalism has been called a system of greed, yet it is the only system that raised the standard of living of its poorest citizens to heights no collectivist system has ever begun to equal and no tribal gang can conceive of. Capitalism has been called nationalistic, yet it is the only system that banished ethnicity and maintained, made it possible in the United States for men of various antagonistic nationalities to live together in peace. Capitalism has been called cruel, yet it brought such hope, progress and general goodwill that the young people of today who have not seen it, find it hard to believe as to pride, dignity, self confidence, self esteem. These are characteristics that mark a man form martyrdom in a tribal society and under any social system except capitalism. If you want an example of what had once been the spirit of America, a spirit which would be impossible today, but which we must now struggle to bring to a rebirth, I will quote from an old poem that represents the opposite of the abject self abasement of ethnicity. It is a poem called the Westerner by Badger Clark. It begins with quote, my fathers sleep on the eastern plain and each one sleeps alone, unquote. He acknowledges his respect for his forefathers, then says quote, but I lean on no dead kin. My name is mine for fame or scorn and the world began when I was born and the world is mine to win. Thank you.

Let's start on this side, please. Yes, sir.

Yes. People have been making many demands for political change that seem to be against the spirit in the letter of the Constitution. For example, they demand more democratic elections.

And so on, as opposed to the Republican form that we set up.

They demand swifter change and a swifter.

Use of government as opposed to the.

Sort of slow deliberation that was built into the Constitution. Carter has recently said he wants the government to be more efficient, though he has not said to what end should.

It be more efficient.

Okay, my question is, does this seem to be an effect of the tribalism that is to make the system much more easy to manipulate for political purposes? Do we have to destroy the original.

Constitution, Judas, and have the tribal. I see the gentleman why wants to know if the increasing demand for political change is in any way a result of the demands of tribalism?

No, not really, because the demands to change the constitution, particularly in any serious way, are deeper than the issue of tribalism. That is an issue of philosophical collectivism, of which tribalism is only one and the most primitive, perhaps the ugliest manifestation. Tribalism as such is not easy to manage, actually. Tribalism is a country falling apart into fighting gangs. And any ambitious executive, which I believe Mr. Carter is, would not like tribalism at all. So of course he would play up to it, as every politician does today. But he could not manage it. No man can. It simply means a disintegration of a country. And then who gains the power? Well, that's to be determined by force, by eternal fighting.

Next question, please. Yes, sir, I would like to know if you are currently working on any more extended philosophical works, particularly on epistemology. Are you working on any. Any current extended philosophical treatises.

Working systematically? No, unfortunately, I can't claim that I am, but I'm making notes for some future book, so don't ask me when. I appreciate your interest, but I cannot say when that will be begun, let alone completed. I hope someday to do it.

Yes, sir. Does Israel engage in tribalism? Is Israel engage. Engage in tribalism?

Yes, to a large extent. Simply because it is a socialist country, you know, and it is a country based on exclusive religion, which is a state religion. That's another sign of tribalism in form. It is sort of a mixed economy, predominantly socialistic or social democrat, which. That means Marxist. It isn't quite tribalism, but the idea of a particular group's or race's special culture. Yes, of course. That's tribalism. Yes.

If you are familiar with the recent novel or TV film series Roots, would.

You care to relate it or the.

Reaction of the public or the critics.

To your thesis tonight? Yes. Oh, excuse me.

Thank you. If you're familiar with. With the book and the TV series Roots, would you care to relate it to your concept of tribalism?

I answered so quickly because that's the point I wanted to discuss. But it's a complicated point and I had no room or time for it. I have seen only the last three installments of Roots on television, and I'm reading the book now. The three installments that I did see were magnificent. Magnificent. They were beautifully written, beautifully directed, and particularly brilliantly acted. It was not a racist story in any way, not as it was presented on television. However, the author's intention in the whole undertaking of his book was to trace his own ancestry and that form. Yes, it is a Very bad form of tribalism. Only this is a mixed case. The author may have had that idea. That is his mistake. It's his intention. But what he produced is much better than his idea because he produced an image not just of his particular ancestors, but represented the image of the black people in America from an aspect which had not been presented before. And he did it very convincingly. I am now, as I say, judging by the last three installments of the television script, I have not finished the book yet. However, the television show did it brilliantly. Now, what was it that the author, either of the book or of the television show, what is it that they were presenting? They were presenting black people as moral heroes. Here was a people totally hopeless, caught with no way of escape. And the main characters preserved the idea that they were morally right and. And their persecutors were morally wrong. They maintained the idea that the right was on their side. They had a right to freedom. This was made particularly clear in the character of Kizzy, the daughter of the original, the head of the group in a maybe that the moral conviction of your own right under every kind of evil imposition and terror which were certainly placed on the blacks. That is the essence of morality. If people in Soviet Russia only had an attitude like Kizzy, there would be no such Soviet government left today. But, sir, much lower. You see, it is the moral statement here is that even when circumstances beyond your control make you completely helpless existentially, you are still free intellectually and morally. And if you help hang on to your moral conviction, no matter what happens, you are saved. At least spiritually. That is 90% of the battle that I think was the appeal of the television show. And I think that black people who are enthusiastic about the book and the television movie sense is very un. Unfortunate that the meaning given to it is simply know your own ancestors and all of them now, as well as people of other races, are running to fortune tellers practically trying to establish who their great, great grandmother was. And that isn't at all the actual meaning of the show. I don't know what the intended meaning was, but what comes across is a national legend. It's the creation of a myth about the black people in America created by one man who certainly the author, Alex Healy, who deserves credit at least for that much. The black people never had a mythology, at least not in this country, in the sense that here they were torn out of nowhere by force, was a total break to their antecedents, not for racism, but for any kind of purposes. And they were like strangers Stranded among other people in this country. They had no past historically. In a way that Western civilization has a past in mythology, particularly Greek mythology, in religious stories, in the history, perhaps exaggerated, of heroes also gives you some idea of the nature of your society, not your own identity, but the meaning or the nature of your own culture. That is what Roots has done for the black people. It has created a mythology, and a very appealing one of how a people in despair can preserve their dignity and their spirit, their individual morality, which has never been the presentation in regard to blacks, not that I know of. This is the first time they were presented that way. And it's enormously compelling and very beautiful. So that I can well understand why both blacks and whites are very enthusiastic about this presentation. But it is simply a shame and perhaps a tragedy that the man who did it gave it an entirely different meaning. His purpose was to discover his ancestors. And I can't help wondering, well, what kind of slanted history did he give himself? If Junte Kinte, his first, the first man from whom he traces his lineage, was a heroic figure, what about about the white man who raped Kizzy daughter so that Alex Healy must include that white rapist among his ancestors? Oh, that's a disgrace. If he thinks that the heroism of Kezi reflects on him on the other, as her descendant wasn't. The villainy of the white man and the villainy of other people down the line are a reflection on him. Why do ethnics of this tribe always believe that if they can find a king or a hero in their past, that is somehow a reflection on them, but if they find a thug or a crook, well, that doesn't count. We can ignore that. So those of you who have not seen the television show, I would strongly recommend that you see it when it's shown again. I intend to see it from the beginning. It's really worth seeing. But make your own interpretation on what is shown. Don't necessarily accept the authors. If he has presented to you something much wider than his own own intention in it.

Let's get some questions from the middle. Yes, sir. Larry, are you huge on Arthur Kessler? What are your views on Arthur Kessler?

No, no, I have no particular views. I do not regard him important enough to have any opinion of. And I have not read enough of him to form any views, nor have any interest to read enough of you.

Yes, Mr. Rand.

I'm curious as to what you think of President Carter so far, especially with.

Regards to his public statements about human rights and in relationship to the Soviet Union in Particular, what do you think of President Carter so far, particularly in regard to his expressions on human rights? In regard to the Soviet Union, I.

Would have to say no comment and then explain why I don't care to make a comment. I do not trust Mr. Carter across the street, Just as during the campaign it was impossible to determine what did he stand for. He is continuing the same policy when he is president and it is impossible to tell what he is, what he is after. And it is very possible that he is after nothing. And is that. Now I want to repeat a comment which was not an observation of my own, but a very knowledgeable friend of mine said it and I'm inclined to believe that he is right. He said that what Carter seems to be doing is as follows. If his statements in a given field of policy are on one side of the political spectrum, his actions will be on the other. For instance, his speeches on the domestic policy are quite to the left, but his policies so far fortunately, but. But I believe probably temporarily is not too bad. It's not good, but it's not as leftist as it could have been. On the other hand, in foreign policy he makes the statement about human rights, which is very good, and hedges the next day and says that it has nothing to do with my desire to negotiate and he's going to withdraw it or amend it. And pretty soon I expect him to say that the Russians misunderstood him. He didn't really mean human rights or there were rights, but they weren't human or. And I will trust his statements on rights which were good only when I am sure that he isn't going to sell us down the river to Russia. You if a way we have not yet been sold when one could be sure of that? I don't know. Yes, yes, yes.

I have read the Town. When you were nine years old, you decided that you wanted to be a novelist and.

But in the past 20 years since.

Atlas Shrugged, you've written non fiction. Could you please tell us why? Could you explain why you've written less fiction in the last 20 years of Southern Ireland?

Because I have a very serious dilemma. You know, I don't like to write historical fiction or fantasies and it is impossible to write about heroic characters or a romantic story in today's setting. The world is in such a low state that I could not bear to put it in fiction. I am trying to get around the difficulty. The end. I may or may not succeed. I don't know. I have certain ideas, but if I don't write another novel, that would be the reason. Look around you.

We haven't had a single question from a woman yet. Now, before we're accused of one thing or another, is there a question from the female side? Yes.

Ms. Rand. Ms. Rand, as an advocate of individualism, there is one point that I find difficult difficulty in figuring out in my own mind and perhaps you can clarify and that is the statement that it is the prerogative of a free country to invade and attack and attack what you call a slave state or a slave pen or a non free country. I find this hard to figure out because in the final analysis it is not a nation attacking a nation. It is people attacking people attacking individuals. And they may or may not want your attack. Could you please explain that? I don't care to. Excuse me. Please excuse me. When I know too clearly what I want to say, I jump the gun. I'm sorry.

All right then. Would you clarify how you can rationalize one country at a time.

To begin with, the lady would have had to read the article in which this statement was made, show me the weakness in that my argument, and then ask a question in regard to it. Since she can't do it or won't do it, she asked a question out of context and I do not propose to repeat an entire article that's the one entitled Collectivized race Rights for the benefit of her not reading my work. I'm here to answer those who have read it. However, I know the source of this kind of statement. It's the idea that the nations do not exist, only individuals. And if some poor blood in Soviet Russia didn't want an invasion or he's not a communist, we mustn't have. Who do you think permits governments to go to war? Only a government can put a country into war. And who keeps that government in power? The citizens of that country, including the world's dictatorship. Even Soviet Russia who did not elect the communists, keeps them in power by passivity. Neither Germany did elect its dictatorship and therefore even those Germans who were against Hitler were. Were still responsible for that kind of government and had to suffer the consequences. Therefore, if we attack a dictatorship or any enslaved country, and please not if you expect an answer from you, don't use such things as expression. What I call an enslaved country, I always give my definitions. It isn't that I call it. I always say why I I called. Which you would discover if you bothered to read my article. But for the sake of those who do read them and might be misled by your question, I want to say that individuals, individual Citizens in a country that goes to war are responsible for that war, which is why they should be interested in politics and care careful about not having the wrong kind of government. If one could make a distinction between the actions of a government, the actions of individual citizens, why would we need politics at all? All governments would be on one side doing something among themselves and we private citizens will be going along unhappy, idyllic tribalism. But that that picture is not true. We are responsible for the government we have. And that is why the science of politics and that's why it's important to take our responsibility very, very seriously. If we become a dictatorship and somebody, a freer country attacks us, they have the right to do so. Yes. Ms. Rand, do you believe that Nantucket and Martha Spinier have the right to succeed? Employer? Why not?

Do you believe our two islands off Massachusetts have the right to succeed there?

I must say I don't know because I don't know the details of their case and of their constitution. But since they merely want to change allegiance to a state, I sort of think they're cute.

Yes, sir, the gentleman in the front. Mr. Anderson, do you think that the pressure put on world resources by a rapidly expanding population is making it harder.

To convince people that objectivism or capital.

Capitalism is probably in their best interest? Do you think the rapidly expanding population is making it more difficult for people to understand that objectivism is in their best interest?

I don't see any connection. I mean, if objectivism is true for one baby infant, it will be true for a million of them. And if it's the only way in which mankind can survive, that the scarcer the resources, the more freedom you need, the more you need the ingenuity of the intelligent man to make discoveries and improve everybody's standard of living. But I don't believe that whole story about shrinking resources. They are shrinking because freedom is shrinking. In a free. In a free economy, if any particular resource became scarce long before we would feel the shortage, there would be several different substitute elements or goods invented to take its place. And also in a free economy, you would not use your knowledge and technology to build oil refineries and oil wells for tribal savages and then permit them to nationalize it and hold you up for. Yes, sir.

Can you tell me please, whatever happened to Martin Anderson, who wrote a rather.

Interesting book, a very good book, some.

Years ago called the Federal Bulldozer? He's haven't heard anything about him or from him since then. Do you know anything about Martin Anderson.

Who wrote the Federal Bulldozer I know of him. I don't believe he's written anything since. And the unfortunate thing is that he worked as an economic advisor to Ronald Reagan, which is somewhat a intellectual dead end.

Yes. If a man infringes the rights of another, why does being incarcerated constitute his getting his just due as opposed to paying monetary retribution more broadly, what is the property kind of punishment and how is it morally justified? What kind of punishment would you advocate and how is it morally justified rather than incarceration?

I don't know what's wrong with incarceration? I missed your first sentence. Can you repeat it? What did you say is wrong with incarceration?

I didn't say something was wrong with it. I asked what's the moral justification as opposed to monetary retribution to the victim?

Oh, monetary retribution would be proper if a man has the money. But if he has spent it and yet put him into slavery to earn whatever he has embezzled, he would have used a slave and would be a much worse system. Worse for society. I don't care what happens to the criminal. Worse for society to maintain if you try to make them work it out. But the proper reason, the moral justification for incarceration is in the statement of your question. If a man has committed a crime and it's been proved, something has to be done about it of an unpleasant kind. Something has to be done in the nature of punishment. It is not society's duties to. What do they call it? Rehabilitate. Not only is it not a duty if we knew how, but nobody knows how and it is highly doubtful that it can be done. If a man permits himself to be a criminal, we treat him in the same manner that he demands. He wants to deal in force, we answer him by force and we put him in jail to protect the rest of us from the next time he feel like expressing himself. Gentlemen.

That's right. Mr. Ann, in addition to the five main branches of philosophy, are there any other branches of philosophy which are not merely applications of those five branches to special areas of knowledge such as the philosophy of law, philosophy of biology, etc. You mean any gentleman cites five branches of philosophy? NASA, any others which are not applications of those five?

Not that I know of. Do you? No, there are none.

Yes, please, young lady. Yes, right.

Ms. Rand, I would like to know what you think of the value of dance as an art form. And more specifically, if you would compare the sense of life merits of ballet cast and modern dance.

What do you think of dance, Ms. Rand? And would you compare a ballet Tap and what was the third Modern Dance written?

A whole article of which this is a part. And it's called Art and Cognition. It is reprinted in the later editions of the Romantic Manifesto. Look it up there. I cannot repeat an entire and very complicated article.

Way in the back. That's right.

Yes. On the basis of your statement, and no ethnic group has a right, what would you say to the Palestinians who claim the right to their homeland? Considering that this may be the only.

Solution to peace in the Middle east, would you comment on the rights of the Palestinians who claim their homeland?

Whatever rights the Palestinians may have had, and I don't know the Middle Eastern history enough to know what was the start of their trouble. They have lost all rights to anything, not only land, but to human intercourse by their behavior. Since if they lost land, but instead of that they resort to terrorism and to the slaughter, literal slaughter of innocent citizens. They deserve whichever any commandos anywhere can try to do to them. And I hope they will do it.

Up in the balcony, please.

Yes. Yeah. I don't clearly understand the connection that you've drawn between the difference of male female sex roles and it not being optimal for a woman to be president. And also when you talk about being a hero worshipper, but it doesn't seem completely the other way around. I didn't.

Would you mind repeating and a little louder?

Okay. I don't understand the connection that you draw between the difference in male female sex roles and it not being optimal for a woman to be president. The along with the same issue.

The question having to do with male female sex roles and something about the. The viability of a woman being president. Was that your question? Would you address yourself to that?

I have written an article on the subject. I think it would be totally improper for a woman to be present. The kind of woman that would agree to be is neurotic in some respect. I am not a feminine liberation movement. I believe in masculine superiority passionately, enthusiastically and delightfully. Wait. Not intellectual superiority? Necessarily not. Certainly not moral superiority. Morality applies to everyone. But sexual and romantic superiority. And if you don't understand it, I don't want to say it, but I will. I'm sorry.

Let's get some more questions in the balcony. Gentleman in the corner, please. Do you have an opinion on Julian James book the Origins of the Bicameral Mind? Julian James book, the Origins of the Bicameral Mind. Have you any comment on it?

I think have not read it and know nothing about it.

Next question, please.

Yes. Yes.

You read from home one of the lines of which was lean on no dead kin. You also expressed the preference for personal achievement rather than benefits coming from ascription. I wonder, given those comments you made during your speech, whether you think it's appropriate that massive power be transferred by inherited wealth using an appropriate. A massive power to be transferred by inheritance.

Yes, and the more of it the better. Because the fundamental difference here is the difference between economic power and political power. The word power is used too loosely today as a bad, easy equivocation. Economic power is not power to deal with man by force. It's the power to create, to achieve. Economic power is not taken from anyone. It's created by the man who becomes rich, that is if he becomes rich without government help in a free society. That's economic power. Political power is only the power to use force. And economically political power is merely the power to loot, to seize the wealth created by somebody else, keep a big percentage for yourself and then distribute the rest. There is a difference between these two kinds of powers. And the measure of the large fortunes that are produced and transmitted to heirs is the measure of the rest of us, of the country's freedom. The more large fortunes and and worthless heirs, even let alone the fewer air instances of good heirs, the better. Only you don't see them today. And that's one of our troubles.

Yes. Miss Grant, after the 1964 presidential election you said something to the effect that capitalism had a long run road to go. And view that 13 years later. Do you see that road is as long as it was then. Has capitalism as long a road to go as you once seem to think?

In some respect, longer in others not. It's hard to tell because, for instance, the trend ever since the election of Nixon and The particular, the second one, which was not Nixon's achievement, it was McGovern's achievement. The country is turning to the right to an amazing extent and an amazing speed. In my most optimistic view of the American people, I didn't think they would awaken that quickly. But the people who are more asleep than I thought, who are catatonic about it, intellectuals, they have not discovered capitalism yet. And without intellectual leadership, the people are helpless. No matter what they sense, no matter what they see in common sense terms, they are being pushed into tribes. The American people don't like it at all, but almost have no choice. Almost. Or in a few more years they won't have any choice. Except that of course it won't take. They will not be tribalists in this country. It would take probably several generations before the destruction of the people's individualism and sense of their own rights is destroyed. If it goes on for several generations as we are today, then it will be destroyed. But God only knows what horrors will happen on the way before they are sufficient intellectual voices to assume intellectual, not political, intellectual leadership and explain to the people what capitalism is, why it's good, how it works and why we should re establish it.