"Of Living Death" by Ayn Rand

Those who wish to observe the role of philosophy in human existence may see it dramatized on a grand and gruesome scale in a conflict splitting. The Catholic Church today observe in that conflict man's fear of identifying or challenging philosophical fundamentals. Both sides are willing to fight in silent confusion, to stake their beliefs, their careers, their reputations on the outcome of a battle over the effects of of an unnamed cause. One side is composed predominantly of men who dare not name the cause, the other of men who dare not discover it. Both sides claim to be puzzled and disappointed by what they regard as a contradiction. In the two recent encyclicals of Pope Paul vi, the so called conservatives, speaking in religious, not political terms, were dismayed by the encyclical Popularum Progressio on the Development of Peoples, which advocated global statism, while the so called liberals hailed it as a progressive document. Now the conservatives are hailing the encyclical Humanae Vitae of Human Life, which forbids the use of contraceptives, while the liberals are dismayed by it. Both sides seem to find the two documents inconsistent, but the inconsistent is theirs, not the pontiff's. The two encyclicals are strictly, flawlessly consistent in respect to their basic philosophy and ultimate goal. Both come from the same view of man's nature and are aimed at establishing the same conditions for his life on earth. The first of these two encyclicals forbade ambition. The second forbids enjoyment. The first enslaved man to the physical needs of others. The second enslaves him to the physical capacities of his own body. The first damned achievement. The second damns love. The doctrine that man's sexual capacity belongs to the lower or animal part of his nature has had a long history in the Catholic Church. It is the necessary consequence of the doctrine that man is not an integrated entity, but a being torn apart by two opposite, antagonistic, irreconcilable elements. His body, which is of this earth, and his soul, which is of another supernatural realm. According to that doctrine, man's sexual capacity, regardless of how it is exercised or motivated, not merely its abuses, not unfastidious indulgence or promiscuity, but the capacity as such is sinful or depraved. For centuries, the dominant teaching of the Church held that sexuality is evil, that only the need to avoid the extinction of the human species grants sex the status of a necessary evil, and therefore only procreation can redeem or excuse it. In modern times, many Catholic writers have denied that such is the Church's view. But whatever is its view they did not answer. Let us see if we can find the answer in the encyclical Humanae Vitae, dealing with the subject of birth control. The encyclical prohibits all forms of contraception except the so called rhythm method. The prohibition is total, rigid, unequivocal. It is enunciated as a moral absolute. Bear in mind what this subject entails. Try to hold an image of horror spread across space and time, across the entire globe and through all the centuries. The image of parents chained like beasts of burden to the physical needs of a growing brood of children. Young parents aging prematurely while fighting a losing battle against starvation. The skeletal hordes of unwanted children born without a chance to live. The unwed mothers slaughtered in the unsanitary dens of incompetent abortionists. The silent terror hanging for every couple over every moment of love. If one holds this image while hearing that this nightmare is not to be stopped, the first question one will ask is why? In the name of humanity, one will assume that some inconceivable but crucially important reason must motivate any human being who would seek to let that carnage go on uncontested. So the first thing one will look for in the encyclical is that reason. An answer to that why? Quote the problem of birth, the encyclical declares, like every other problem regarding human life, is to be considered in the light of an integral vision of man and of his vocation, not only his natural and earthly, but also his supernatural and eternal vocation. Close quote paragraph seven of the encyclical. End quote A reciprocal act of love which jeopardizes the responsibility to transmit life, which God the Creator, according to particular laws inserted therein in is in contradiction with the design constitutive of marriage and with the will of the author of life. To use this divine gift, destroying, even if only partially, its meaning and its purpose is to contradict the nature both of man and of woman and of their most intimate relationship. And therefore it is to contradict also the plan of God and His will. Close concept quote paragraph 13. And this is all in the entire encyclical. This is the only reason given, but repeated over and over again, why men should transform their highest experience of happiness, their love, into a source of lifelong agony. Do so, the encyclical commands, because it is God's will. I who do not believe in God, wonder why those who do would ascribe to him such a sadistic design, when God is supposed to be the archetype of mercy. Kindness and benevolence. What earthly goal is served by that doctrine? The answer runs like a hidden thread through the encyclical structure, labyrinthian convolutions, repetitions, and exhortations. In the darker corners of that labyrinth, one finds some snatches of argument in alleged support of the mystic axiom. But these arguments are embarrassingly transparent equivocations. For instance, quote to make use of the gift of conjugal love while respecting the laws of the generative process means to acknowledge oneself not to be the arbiter of the sources of human life, but rather the minister of the design established by the Creator. In fact, just as man does not have unlimited dominion over his body in general, so also with particular reason, he has no such dominion over his creative faculties, and as such, because of their intrinsic ordination toward raising up life, of which God is the principle. Close quote paragraph 13. What is meant here by the words man does not have unlimited dominion over his body in general? The obvious meaning is that man cannot change the metaphysical nature of his body, which is true, but man has the power of choice in regard to the actions of his body, specifically in regard to his creative faculties, and the responsibility for the use of these particular faculties is most crucially his. To acknowledge oneself not to be the author, the arbiter of the sources of human life, is to evade and to default on that responsibility. Here again, the same equivocation or package deal is involved. Does man have the power to determine the nature of his procreative faculty? No. But granted that nature, is he the arbiter of bringing a new human life into existence? He most certainly is, and he, with his mate, is the sole arbiter of that decision, and the consequences of that decision affect and determine the entire course of his life. This is a clue to that paragraph's intention. If man believed that so crucial a choice as procreation is not in his control, what would it do to his control over his life, his goals, his future? The passive obedience and helpless surrender to the physical functions of one's body, the necessity to let procreation be the inevitable result of the sexual act is the natural fate of animals, not of men, in spite of its concern with men's higher aspirations, with his soul, with the sanctity of married love, it is to the level of animals that the encyclical seeks to reduce men's sex life, in fact, in reality, on earth. What does this indicate about the encyclical's view of sex Sex? Anticipating certain obvious objections, the encyclical declares, quote now Some may ask, in the present case, is it not reasonable in many circumstances to have recourse to artificial birth control if thereby we secure the harmony and peace of the family and better conditions for the education of children already born? To this question it is necessary to reply with clarity. The Church is the first to praise and recommend the intervention of intelligence in a function which so closely associates the rational creature with his Creator. But she affirms that this must be one with respect for the order established by God. Close quote paragraph 16. To what does this subordinate man's intelligence? If intelligence is forbidden to consider the fundamental problems of man's existence, forbidden to alleviate his suffering, what does this indicate about the encyclical's view of man and of reason? History can answer this particular question. History has seen a period of approximately 10 centuries known as the Dark and Middle Ages, when philosophy was regarded as the handmaiden of theology and reason as the humble subordinate of faith. The results speak for themselves. It must not be forgotten that the Catholic Church has fought every advance of science since the Renaissance, from Galileo's astronomy to the dissection of corpses which was the start of modern medicine, to the discovery of anesthesia in the 19th century, the greatest single discovery in respect to the incalculable amount of terrible suffering it has spared mankind. The Catholic Church has fought medical progress by means of the same argument that the application of knowledge to the relief of human suffering is an attempt to contradict God's design, specifically in regard to anesthesia during childbirth. The argument claims that since God intended woman to suffer while giving birth, man has no right to intervene. The encyclical does not recommend unlimited procreation. It does not object to all means of birth control only to those it calls artificial, that is scientific. It does not object to man contradicting God's will, nor to man being the arbiter of the sources of human life, provided he uses the means it endorses abstinence. Discussing the issue of responsible parenthood, the encyclical states, in relation to physical, economic, psychological, and social conditions, responsible parenthood is exercised either by the deliberate and generous decision to raise a numerous family or by the decision made for grave motives and with due respect for the moral law, to avoid, for the time being, or even for an indeterminate period, new birth close quote paragraph 10. To avoid by what means? By abstaining from sexual intercourse. The lines preceding that passage are quote in relation to the tendencies of instinct or passion, responsible parenthood means the necessary dominion which reason and will must exercise over them Close quote. How a man is to force his reason to obey an irrational injunction and what it would do to him psychologically is not mentioned. Further on, under the heading mastery of self, the encyclical declares quote. To dominate instinct by means of one's reason and free will undoubtedly requires aesthetic practices. Yet this discipline, which is proper to the purity of married couples, far from harming conjugal love, rather confers on it a higher human value. It demands continual effort. Yet thanks to its beneficent influence, husband and wife fully develop their personalities, being enriched with spiritual values. Such discipline helps both parties to drive out selfishness, the enemy of true love, and deepens their sense of responsibility. Close quote paragraph 21. If you can bear that style of expression being used to discuss such matters, which I find close to unbearable, and if you focus on the meaning of, you will observe that the discipline, the continual effort, the beneficent influence, the higher human value. Refer to the torture of sexual frustration. No, the encyclical does not say that sex as such is evil. It merely says that sexual abstinence in marriage is a higher human value. What does this indicate about the encyclical's view of sex and of marriage? Its view of marriage is fairly explicit. Conjugal love is, first of all fully human, that is to say, of the senses and of the spirit at the same time. It is not, then, a simple transport of instinct and sentiment, but also, and principally an act of the free will intended to endure and to grow by means of the joys and sorrows of daily life in such a way that husband and wife become one only heart and one only soul, and together attain their human perfection. Then this love is total. That is to say, it is a very special, special form of personal friendship in which husband and wife generously share everything without undue reservations or selfish calculations. Close quote paragraph 9. To classify the unique emotion of romantic love as a form of friendship is to obliterate it. The two emotional categories of are mutually exclusive. The feeling of friendship is non sexual. It can be experienced toward a member of one's own sex. There are many other indications of this kind, scattered through the encyclical. For instance, quote These acts by which husband and wife are united in chaste intimacy and by means of which human life is. Is transmitted, are, as the council recalled, noble and worthy. It is not chastity that one seeks in sex, and to describe it this way is to emasculate the meaning of marriage. There are constant references to a married couple's duties which have to be considered in the context of the sexual act. Quote Duties toward God, towards themselves, toward the family, and towards society. If there is any one concept which, when associated with sex, would render a man impotent, it is the concept of duty. To understand the full meaning of the encyclical's view of sex, I shall ask you to identify the common denominator, the common intention of the following Quote the Church's teaching, often set forth by the Magisterium, is founded upon the inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the two meanings of the conjugal act, the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning. Indeed, by its intimate structure, the conjugal act, while most closely uniting husband and wife, capacitates them for the generation of new lives. Close quote paragraph 12 and quote the conjugal acts do not cease to be lawful if, for causes independent of the will of husband and wife, they are foreseen to be inferior. Close quote paragraph 11 and the church forbids quote every action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act or its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means to render procreation impossible. Close quote paragraph 14 and the church does not object to an impediment to procreation which might result from the medical treatment of a disease, Quote provided such impediment is not, for whatever motive, directly willed. Close quote paragraph 15 and finally, the Church quote teaches that each and every marriage act must remain open to the transition transmission of life. Close quote paragraph 11 what is the common denominator of these statements? It is not merely the tenet that sex as such is evil, but deeper, it is the commandment by means of which sex will become evil, the commandment which, if accepted, will divorce sex from love, will castrate men spiritually, and will turn sex into a meaningless physical indulgence. That commandment is man must not regard sex as an end in itself, but only as a means to an end. Procreation and God's design are not the major concern of that doctrine. They are merely primitive rationalizations to which man's self esteem is to be sacrificed. If it were otherwise, why distressed insistence on forbidding man to impede procreation by his conscious will and choice? Why the tolerance of the conjugal acts of couples who are infinite by nature rather than by choice? What is so evil about that choice? There is only one answer. That choice rests on a couple's conviction that the justification of sex is their own enjoyment. And this is the view which the Church's doctrine is intent on forbidding at any price. That such is the doctrine's intention is supported by the Church's stand on the so called writ method of birth control, which the encyclical approved and recommends. The Church is coherent with herself when she considers recourse to the infecund periods to be licit, while at the same time condemning as being always illicit the use of means directly contrary to fecundation, even if such use is inspired by reasons which may appear honest and serious. It is true that in the one and the other case the married couple are concordant in the positive will of avoiding children for plausible reasons, seeking the certainty that offspring will not arrive. But it is also true that only in the former case are they able to renounce the use of marriage in the fecund periods, when, for just motives procreation is not desirable, while making use of it during infant periods to manifest their affection and to safeguard their mutual fidelity. By so doing they give proof of a truly and integrally honest love. Close quote, paragraph 16. On the face of it, this does not make any kind of sense at all, and the Church has often been accused of hypocrisy or compromise because it permits this very unreliable method of birth control while forbidding all others. But examine that statement from the aspect of its intention and you will see that the Church is indeed coherent with herself. That is consistent. What is the psychological difference between the rhythm method and other means of contraception? The difference lies in the fact that using using the rhythm method, a couple cannot regard sexual enjoyment as a right and as an end in itself. With the help of some hypocrisy, they merely sneak and snatch some personal pleasure, while acknowledging that childbirth is the only moral justification of sex and that only by the grace of the calendar are they unable to comply. This acknowledgment is the meaning of of the encyclical's peculiar implication that to renounce the use of marriage in the fecund periods is somehow a virtue, a renunciation, which proper methods of birth control would not require. What else? But this acknowledgment can be the meaning of the otherwise unintelligible statement that by the use of the written method a couple give proof of a truly and integrally of honest love. There is a widespread popular notion to the effects of the Catholic Church's motive in opposing birth control is the desire to enlarge the Catholic population of the world. This may be superficially true of some people's motives, but it is not the full truth. If it were, the Catholic Church would forbid there is method alone, along with all other forms of contraception. And more importantly, the Catholic Church would not fight for anti birth control legislation all over the world. If numerical superiority were its motive, it would forbid birth control to its own followers and let it be available to other religious groups. The motive of the Church's doctrine under this issue is philosophically much deeper than that and much worse. The goal is not metaphysical or political or biological, but psychological. 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 that encyclical is directed, but against the spiritual meaning of sex in man's life. By spiritual I mean pertaining to man's life consciousness. It is not directed against casual mindless promiscuity, but against romantic love. To make this clear, let me indicate in brief, in brief essentials a rational view of the role of sex in men's existence. Sex is a physical capacity, but its exercise is determined by men mind, by his choice of values held consciously or subconsciously. To a rational man, sex is an expression of self esteem, a celebration of himself and of existence. To the man who lacks self esteem, sex is an attempt to fake it, to acquire its momentary illusion. Romantic love, in the full sense of the term is an emotion possible only to the man or woman of unbridged self esteem. It is his response to his own highest values in the person of another, an integrated response of mind and body, of love and sexual desire. Such a man or woman is incapable of experiencing a sexual desire divorced from spiritual values. I quote from my novel Atlas Shrugged. The men who think that wealth comes from material resources and has no intellectual root or meaning are the men who think for the same reason that sex is a physical capacity which functions independently of one's mind, choice or code of values. But in fact a man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Sexual is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which man cannot perform for any motive but his own enjoyment. Just try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity, an act which is not possible in self abasement, only in self exaltation, only in the confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire. Love is our responsibility, responds to our highest values, and can be nothing else. Only the man who extols the purity of a love devoid of desire is capable of the depravity of a desire devoid of love. In other words, sexual promiscuity is to be condemned not because sex as such is evil, but because it is not good, too good and too important to be treated casually. In comparison to the moral and psychological importance of sexual happiness, the issue of procreation is insignificant and irrelevant, except as a deadly threat and God bless the inventors of the pill. The capacity to procreate is merely a potential which mentioned is not obligated to actualize. The choice to have children or not is morally optional. Nature endows man with a variety of potentials, and it is his mind that must decide which capacities he chooses to exercise according to his own hierarchy of rational goals and values. The mere fact that man has the capacity to kill does not mean that it is his duty to become a murderer. In the same way, the mere fact that man has the capacity to procreate does not mean that it is his duty to commit spiritual suicide. By making procreation his primary goal and turning himself into a stud farm animal, it is only animals that have to adapt themselves to their physical background and to the biological functions of their bodies. Man adapts his physical background and the use of his biological faculties to himself, to his own needs and values. That is his distinction from all other living species to an animal. The rearing of its young is a matter of temporary cycles. To man, it is a lifelong responsibility, a grave responsibility that must not be undertaken causelessly, thoughtlessly, or accidentally. 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, in today's public clamor on the subject, few if any voice 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. Man is an end in himself. Romantic love, the profound, exalted lifelong passion that unites his mind and body in the sexual act, is the living testimony to that principle. This is what the encyclical seeks to destroy, or more precisely, to obliterate, as if it does not and cannot exist. Observe the encyclical's contemptuous references to sexual desire as instinct or passion, as if passion were a pejorative term. Observe the false dichotomy offered. Man's choice is either mindless instinctual copulation or marriage, an institution presented not as a union of passionate love, but as a relationship of chaste intimacy, of special personal friendship, of discipline proper to purity, of unselfish duty, of alternating bouts with frustration and pregnancy, and of such unselfish, unspeakable, great B movie fox next door kind of boredom that any semi living man would have to run in self preservation to the nearest whorehouse. No, I'm not exaggerating. I have reserved as my last piece of evidence on the question of the encyclical's view of sex the paragraph in which the coils and veils of euphemistic equivocation got torn somehow and the naked truth shows through it reads as follows. Quote Upright men can even better convince themselves of the solid grounds on which the teaching of the Church in this field is based if they care to reflect upon the consequences of methods of artificial birth control. Let them consider first of all how wide and easy a road will thus be opened up toward conjugal infidelity and a general lowering of morality. Not much experience is needed in order to know human weakness and to understand that men, especially the young, who are so vulnerable on this point, have need of encouragement to be faithful to the moral law, so that they must not be offered some easy means of eluding its observance. It is also to be feared that the men growing used to the employment of anti conceptive practices may finally lose respect for the woman and no longer caring for her physical and psychological equilibrium, may come to the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment and no longer as his respected and beloved companion. Close quote paragraph 17 of the Encyclical I cannot conceive of a rational woman who does not want to be precisely an instrument of her husband's selfish enjoyment. I cannot conceive of what would have to be the mental state state of a woman who could desire or accept the position of having a husband who does not derive any selfish enjoyment from sleeping with her. I cannot conceive of anyone, male or female, capable of believing that sexual enjoyment would destroy a husband's love and respect for his wife. But regarding her as a broodmare and himself as a sexual stud would cause him to love and respect her. Actually, this is too evil to discuss much further, but we must also take note of the first part of that paragraph. It states that artificial contraception would open a wide and easy road toward conjugal infidelity such as the encyclical's actual view of marriage, that marital fidelity rests on nothing better than fear of pregnancy. Well, not much experience is needed in order to know that that fear has never been much of a deterrent to anyone. Now observe the inhuman cruelty of that paragraph's reference to the young. Admitting that the young are vulnerable on this point, and declaring that they need encouragement to be faithful to the moral law, the encyclical forbids them the use of contraceptives, thus making it cold bloodedly clear that its idea of moral encouragement consists of terror. The sheer stark terror of young people caught between their first experience of love and the primitive brutality of the moral code of their elders. Surely the authors of the encyclical cannot be ignorant of the fact that it is not the young chasers or the teenage sluts who would be the victims of a ban on contraceptives, but the innocent young who risk their lives in the quest for love, the girl who finds herself pregnant and abandoned by her boyfriend, or the boy who is trapped into a premature, unwanted marriage. To ignore the agony of such victims, the countless suicides, the deaths at the hands of quack abortionists, the drained lives were wasted under the double burden of a spurious dishonor and of an unwanted child. To ignore all that in the name of the moral law is to make a mockery of morality. Another and truly incredible mockery leers at us from that same paragraph. 17 as a warning against the use of contraceptives, the encyclical states, quote, let it be considered, considered also, that a dangerous weapon would thus be placed in the hands of those public authorities who take no heed of moral exigencies, who will stop rulers from favoring, from even imposing upon their peoples, if they were to consider it necessary, the method of contraception which they judge to be most efficacious. In such a way, men wishing to avoid individual, family or social difficulties encountered in the observance of the Divine law would reach the point of placing at the mercy of the intervention of public authorities the most personal and most reserved sector of conjugal intimacy. Close quote paragraph 17. No public authorities have attempted, and no private groups have urged them to attempt to force contraception on Catholics. But when one remembers that it is the Catholic Church who has initiated anti birth control legislation the world over, and thus has placed, quote, at the mercy of the intervention of public authorities the most personal and most reserved sector of conjugal intimacy, that statement becomes outrageous. Were it not for the politeness of one should preserve toward the papal office, one would call that statement a brazen effrontery. This leads us to the encyclical stand on the issue of abortion and to another example of inhuman cruelty. Compare the coiling sentimentality of the encyclical style when it speaks of conjugal love, to the clear brusque military tone of the fallen. We must once again declare that the direct interruption of the generative process, already begun and above all directly willed and procured abortion, even if for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as illicit means of regulating birth. Paragraph 14 after excluding bestowing the virtue and sanctity of motherhood as a woman's highest duty as her eternal vocation, the encyclical attaches a special risk of death to the performance of that duty, an unnecessary death in the presence of doctors forbidden to save her, as if a woman were only a screaming huddle of infected flesh who must not be permitted to imagine that she has the right to live. And this policy is advocated by the encyclical supporters in the name of their concern for the sanctity of life and for rights, the rights of the embryo. I suppose that only the psychological mechanism of projection can make it possible for such advocates to accuse their opponents of being anti life observes that the men who oppose hold such a concept as the rights of an embryo are the men who deny, negate, and violate the rights of a living human being. An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not yet living or the unborn. Abortion is a moral right which should be left at the sole discretion of the woman involved. Morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body. The Catholic Church is responsible for this country's disgracefully barbarian anti abortion laws which should be repealed and abolished. The intensity of the importance that the Catholic Church attaches to its doctrine on sex may be gauged by the enormity of the indifference to human suffering expressed in the encyclical. Its authors cannot be ignorant of the fact that man has to earn his living by his own effort and that there is no couple on earth, on any level of income, in any country, civilized or not, who would be able to support the number of children they would produce if they obeyed the encyclical to the latter. If we assume the richest couple and include time off for the periods of purity, it will still be true that the physical and psychological strain of their vocation would be so great that nothing much would be left of them, particularly of the mother, by the time they reached the age of 40. Consider the position of an average American couple. What would be their life if they succeeded in raising, say, 12 children by working from morning till night, by running a desperate race with the periodic trips to maternity wards, with rent bills, grocery bills, clothing bills, pediatrician's bills, strained vegetables bills, schoolbook bills, measles, mumps, whooping cough, Christmas trees, movies, ice cream cones, summer camps, party dresses, dates, draft cards, hospitals, colleges, with every salary raise of the industrious hard working father mortgaged and swallowed before it is received. What was would they have gained at the end of their life, except the hope that they might be able to pay their cemetery bills in advance? Now consider the position of the majority of mankind who are barely able to subsist on a level of prehistorical poverty. No strain, no back breaking effort of the able's most conscientious father can enable him to properly to feed one child, let alone an open end progression. The unspeakable misery of stunted disease eaten chronically undernourished children who die in droves before the age of 10, is a matter of public record. Pope Paul VI, who closes his encyclical by mentioning his title as earthly representative of quote the God of holiness and Mercy, cannot be ignorant of these facts, yet he is able to ignore them. We are well aware of the serious difficulties experienced by public authorities in this regard, especially in the developing countries. To their legitimate preoccupations we devoted our encyclical letter Popularum Progressio. The only passing possible solution to this question is one which envisages the social and economic progress both of individuals and of the whole of human society, and which respects and promotes true human values. Neither can one without grave injustice consider divine providence to be responsible for what depends instead on a lack of wisdom in government, on an insufficiency sense of social justice, unselfish monopolization, or again, on blameworthy indolence in confronting the efforts and the sacrifices necessary to ensure the raising of living standards of a people and of all its sons. Close quote paragraph 23. The encyclical Papillorum Progressia advocated the abolition of capitalism and the establishment establishment of a totalitarian, socialist, fascist global state in which the right to quote the minimum essential for life unquote is to be the ruling principle and quote all other rights whatsoever, including those of property and of free commerce, are to be subordinated to this principle unquote. If today, as struggling, desperate men somewhere in Peru or China or Egypt or Nigeria, accepted the commandments of the present encyclical and strove to be moral, but saw his horde of children dying of hunger around him. The only practical advice the encyclical would give him is wait for the establishment of a collectivist moral state. What in God's name is he to do in the meantime? Philosophically, however, the reference to the earlier encyclical Papillorum Progressio is extremely significant. It is as if Pope Paul VI were pointing to the bridge between the two documents and to their common base. The global state advocated in Popularum Progressio is a nightmare utopia where all are enslaved to the physical needs of all. Its inhabitants are selfless robots programmed by the tenets of altruism, without personal ambition, without mind, pride or self esteem. But self esteem is a stubborn enemy of all utopias of that kind, and it is doubtful whether mere economic enslavement would destroy it wholly in men's souls. What Popularum Progressio was intended to achieve from without in regards to to the physical conditions of man's existence, Humanae Vitae is intended to achieve from within in regard to the devastation of man's consciousness. Quote don't allow men to be happy, said Ellsworth Stewie in my novel the Fountainhead. Happiness is self contained and self sufficient. Happy men are free men, so kill their joy in living, make themselves feel that the mere fact of a personal desire is evil. Unhappy men will come to you. They'll need you. They'll come for consolation, for support, for escape. Nature allows no vacuum. Empty men's soul, and the space is yours to fill. Close quote Deprived of ambition, yet sentenced to endless toil, deprived of reward, yet ordered to produce deprived of sexual enjoyment, yet commanded to procreate, deprived of the right to live, yet forbidden to die, condemned to a state of living death. The graduates of the encyclical Humanae Vitae will be ready to move into the world of Papillorum Progressio. They will have no other place to go. Quote if some man like Hugh Axton, said Hank Reardon in my novel Atlas Shrugged, had told me when I started that by accepting the mystic theory of sex, I was accepting the looter's theory of economics, I would have laughed in his face. I would not laugh at him now. Close quote when the encyclical speaks of materialism and objects to an utterly materialistic conception of man himself and of his life, what it means is man's mind and this earth. When it speaks of the spiritual. It means whatever is anti man, anti mind, anti life, and above all anti possibility of human happiness on earth. In my article Requiem for Men, which discussed the former encyclical Papillorum Progressio, I discussed its motives and what I said applies as fully to the present encyclical Humanae Vitae, with only a minor paraphrase pertaining to its subject. Quote but you say the encyclical's ideal will not work. It is not intended to work. It is not intended to achieve human chastity or sexual virtue. It is intended to induce guilt. It is not intended to be accepted and practiced. It is intended to be accepted and broken, broken by man's selfish desire to love, which will thus be turned into a shameful weakness. Men who accept as an ideal an irrational goal which they cannot achieve, never lift their heads thereafter and never discover that their bowed head were the only goal to be achieved. Close quote I said in that article that Popularum progressio was produced by the sense of life not of an individual, but of an institution whose driving power and dominant obsession is the desire to break man's spirit. Today I say it with clearer evidence about the encyclical Humanae Vitae. This is the fundamental issue which neither side of the present conflict is willing fully to identify. The conservatives or traditionalists of the Catholic Church seem to know, no matter what rationalizations they propound, that such is the meaning and intention of their doctrine. The liberals seem to be more in a certain at least in this issue, and struggle not to have to face it. But they are the supporters of global statism, and in opposing humane vitae they are merely fighting the right battle for the wrong reasons. If they win, their social views will still lead them to the same ultimate results. The rebellion of the victims. The Catholic layman has a touch of healthy self assertion, however. If they defy the encyclical and continue to practice birth control but regard it as a matter of their own weakness and guilt, the encyclical will have won. This is precisely what it was intended to accomplish. A group of bishops struggling to find a compromise came out with a statement proclaiming that contraception is an un objective evil, but individuals incur no guilt if they use it, which amounts to a total abdication from the field of morality and can lead men only to a deeper sense of guilt. Such is the tragic futility of attempting to fight the existential consequences of a philosophical issue without facing and challenging the philosophy that produces. This issue is not confined to the Catholic Church, and it is Deeper than the problem of contraceptives, it is a moral crisis approaching a climax. The core of the issue is Western civilization's view of man and of his life. The essence of that view rests on the answer to two interrelated questions. Is man man the individual, and ending himself? And does man have the right to be happy on this earth? Throughout its history, the west has been torn by profound ambivalence on these questions. All of its achievements came from those periods when men acted as if the answer were yes. But with exceedingly rare exceptions, their spokesman, the philosopher's, kept proclaiming a thunderous no in countless forms. Neither an individual nor an entire civilization can exist indefinitely. With an unresolved conflict of that kind, our age is paying the penalty for it, and it is our age that will have to resolve it.

Of Living Death Q and A with Ayn Rand.

Our featured speaker this evening, Ms. Ayn Rand, who addressed this capacity audience on the topic of living death.

The critique of the papal encyclical on birth control.

Once again, a great portion of this.

Audience has risen to its feet.

Now, may I, before having the questions, and I'll take two from a section because of the huge crowd, may I remind you that you are the questioner. Make your question as brief as you can, and remember always the speaker is on the platform. Questions, please. Yes, Ms. Rand, would you please explain.

The current status and MP.

Will you.

Kindly explain the present stand of NBI and the objectivists and the reasons for them?

No, I will not. Since you know enough to ask this question, you know that there's something is going on there, and if you know that, you should know that for 50 cents you can buy the May 1968 issue of the Objectives, which will tell you what happened and the reasons for it.

Regarding your position on selfishness, Eric Krohn does precisely the same thing about selfishness when he talks about individual self esteem and love. And you comment and they do.

Will.

You comment upon Eric Frome's views on love and self esteem?

Well, you see, we would be living in Atlantis if men used words so precisely that when a man uses a certain concept, you may be sure he means it and that it means the same as the concept used by anyone else. It so happens that, yes, Eric Fromm uses the concept selfishness only it is in the exact diametrically opposite sense to the one I use. To give you the briefest example of the difference between us and Eric Prom's view of love, I would suggest that you read a brief little book, Hip Hop called The art of love, which was very well known and in which he presents as the proper nature the morality of love what I in Atlas Shrug presented in the character of James Taggart. And if you have read Atlas Shrugged, you know that he is not a representative of my philosophy, to say the least. Eric Fromm advocates that love must be causeless. And he uses almost the same terms, if not literally the same, the same ideas as Eric Fromm. Incidentally, his book came out as James Taggart. His book came out, I think about a year before at Rashad. I can using him or myself of stealing from each other because I don't know him. I've never met him. But it's fascinating to what extent the logic of the wrong premises works. He advocated the following. If you love someone for reasons for given virtues or character traits or values in a person that's being in effect commercial, you must love a person without reason. Otherwise he claims that it is trading. It is in effect capitalistic. And he declares that capitalism is the enemy of love. And if this is his idea of love, I would say it is true. Except that capitalism wouldn't have to bother him. He is free to indulge in any kind of love he wants. And if cosmos love unearned love is what he wants, he must have his reasons.

But.

That is the exact opposite of what I advocate when I say that grapple love from romantic love. Anything which is not an erotic emotion is based precisely on what he regards as commercial, namely unjustice. On a proper response to the values you observe and admire in a member of the opposite sex. Love is a response to values. And most certainly, if it is to be loved, has to be earned. Earned by means of the virtues which you have developed in your character. So Eric Fromm and I do not agree.

Question?

Yes, yes.

Persuasion magazine, recently suspended publications. Are there any other publications of historical.

You would care to recommend?

Persuasion magazine, recently suspended publications. Are there any magazines of this sort which you would like to recommend?

No, I don't know any other magazines of that sort. I believe they caused by reason of Mr. Dawson's ill health, or so Mrs. Dawson told me.

I regret it.

It was a nice little magazine, but I don't know of any other and I seldom recommend magazines.

Further question here.

Yes, where can I get a complete copy of Miss Man?

This lady would like to know where can she get a complete and unabridged copy of the talk you have given.

Here tonight in the Objectivist, Starting with the next issue. You see, we're slightly late, so the next Slightly. I'm catching up. The next is The September issue, September 1960, which is going to the presses tomorrow or Tuesday at the latest. And this article will be in the next two and perhaps three issues, according to the length of the articles by other contributors.

Further question here. Wayne, back when can we expect to.

See publication of this grand.

When can it be expected that we will be able to see your next novel published and the next collection of your volume? With regard to Objectivist philosophy.

No, the Objectivist philosophy, that is a full treatment, not in the form of essays, I would say, but time I'm 70 and maybe later that I cannot promise. I'm not working on it. As to my next novel, I hope if I'm optimistic within the next two years. But don't hold me to it. I can't promise, unfortunately.

Come on.

Is the form of priestly celibacy an official form of birth control?

Isn't the priestly form of celibacy an official form of birth control?

Well, it isn't so much birth control as it is an example, a declaration of the tenets that sexuality or sex as such is evil or unworthy in some way of a man who dedicates his life to God in the Catholic Church has explained that it was not in modern times at least some spokesmen have said that it's not intended as a disparagement of sex, but simply intended for the purpose of having a priest dedicated exclusively to his calling as a priest, to his duty to God, and so that he would not be distracted in effect by any divided loyalty or love for woman or family. That might be the reason, but it does not seem likely because, or at least if it is, that's very bad miscalculation because a happy marriage helps any man or woman in any serious devotion. And certainly if God did not regard, and I'm sure he doesn't, if he existed, he couldn't regard love as evil. There would be in reason no reason why a priest should not be married. But there is one of the oldest and very profound indications of the Catholic Church's antagonism to and condemnation of sexual.

Yes, an ethical code attempting to tell me that it is not in my self interest to violate the rights of another in any situation must first demonstrate that the self interest of men do not pledge in any situation, including a metacritical emergency. It is about specific ways that I wish to ask you. A rational man finds himself trapped in a natural emergency where no one has initiated force against him and where the only way he preserved his life is by taking that.

I get it, I get it.

Please.

See if I haven't got it.

You.

Don'T have to give an example, because the. The very question gives the example and see if I haven't got it. If I haven't, I'll let you pick it up again. This young gentleman is undertaking to pose a very serious problem. And that is, a rational person finds himself placed in a position of extreme danger to himself, so that unless he acts, he will die or he'll be killed. Can he, under these circumstances, undertake, in order to extricate himself, to do hurt to another person equally innocent, who may be the means of the first person avoiding disaster? This is the dilemma. That's what you had in mind. I said that who was absolutely innocent.

Yes.

Bear me through. Go ahead.

This is what I call light bulbs questions, by which I mean ethical questions based on some formulations, such as what should a man do if he and another man are in a lifeboat which can hold only one? That's the same principle. So therefore, first, as a principle, I will answer. Every code of ethics has to be based on metaphysics, that is, on a certain view of reality of the world in which man lives, the metaphysical nature of the world with which he has to deal. Now, man does not live in lifeboats, nor in situations where to save his life, he has to kill an innocent man. Offhand, even as a writer, I cannot project any situation in which a man has to kill an innocent, innocent man to defend his own life. I can understand him killing a man who is threatening him, who is initiating force. Those situations do exist and can be imagined. But you would have to first project, even theoretically, in what way would an innocent man get into the first man's way or in the woods, become a threat to him? Now, I can tell you one, and let's see if this is what you have in mind. It would only be possible under some kind of totalitarian dictatorship. Supposing your first man is escaping and he needs a disguise. If he doesn't get it, the Gestapo or the GPU will arrest him in the next moment. Or he has to kill an innocent by standard in order to get his coat as a disguise. Is that the kind of situation you're in? If it is, I would say that nobody can answer it. You can answer your question, because when a man are under a totalitarian dictatorship that is under force, there is no such thing as morality. Morality ends where Ghana begins. I would have to say, in such a case, I personally would say your man is still immoral. If he takes an innocent life. But speaking formally as a moral philosopher, I would say in emergency situations of that kind, in which, incidentally, the main protagonist is not the cause of the emergency situation. It. If he's a murderer skipping for the police, then he caused his own predicament. But only in emergency situations, such as dictatorships or gang war in which a bystander gets caught. Nobody can prescribe what is appropriate for a man to do if his own life is at stake. And that will be also my answer to the question of. Of the two men in a boat can carry only one. No moral rule can be prescribed for those situations by anyone. For the reason that only life is based on which one can establish a moral code. When a man is under threat of destruction through no fault of his own, morality does not pertain to society situations. And whatever he chooses to do is, in effect, right. It can only be subjectively right. And in this sense two men can make opposite choices. I don't think I would kill an innocent bystander if my life was in danger. But I would project that I would kill 10 of them if my husband's life was in danger. But. But that could happen only under dictatorship. And one reason why one should not live under one or seek to establish. Establish them. Morality vanishes under a gun.

I believe I may be wrong. But if you are a student and have access to a law library, you go there and look through the misfit cases. The library will help you. Ask him to get for you the case of Regina against Dudley. Regina, the Queen against Dudley. This was a case where British crewmen in a boat, because their own boat had sunk, they were in a lifeboat. And in the crew in the lifeboat there was a young flag and they were starving. They'd been for days without water. Some had died and been thrown overboard. And finally, in desperation, they killed the boy and they ate him. And within the day, a boat came in fuel and rescued them and they were charged with murder. Read the case and you'll see what happened.

May I ask a question?

Well, I will be glad to tell you I debated in my own mind whether I would undertake to point this out, but this interested me. As a matter of fact, in our own American jurisprudence there is a similar case, but I won't go into that. But what happened was this. They were found guilty of murder. And the result was that under all the circumstances, there was eventually a commutation by the Home Office, as you know, that is the pardoning Office in England. And each of these unhappy men served about six months, I think you'll find that in the footnote in the case.

Yes, go ahead, Recently Paul Sanderson.

Pardon me? Recently Paul Sanderson, yeah.

Mit, at a.

Short speech later on at music company.

Used the Thai Tim and very first.

Comment to make fun of Al Greenspan, yeah, I would like to know what is your connection? What do you think of Mr. Greenspan?

This gentleman. This gentleman says that Paul Samuelson, whom he describes as a Kenyan Keynesian economist, recently in Newsweek and elsewhere, gave utterance to a criticism of Alan Greenspan and of you, Ms. Rand, and this young. This gentleman would like to know what your opinion is Concerning, I assume, Mr. Greenspan, and inferentially, Mr. Samuels.

I would be happy to answer that question if it were asked by someone else in a different context, in a way in which you presented on principle, I will not answer for the following reason, if you saw that the comments were derogatory, what is your intention in getting up in public and announcing it to me? Your action in being Mr. Samuelson, transmission belt or free press agent, Whether you intended it as that or not amounts to that you want to unexpected telling me some so and so has attacked you and a friend of yours, what do you think of your friend? I will not tell you my opinion of Mr. Greenspan under these circumstances, but my opinion of Mr. Samuelson, you should have been able to deduce yourself from whichever remarks it is that you read, that is your job, not mine.

Just one minute, please, all quiet, please, as.

The project has changed a little, I'd like to know if you can tell what role Mr. Greenspan will play with Mr. Nixon, whether.

Could you feel able to tell US what role Mr. Greenspan will play with the incoming administration of Mr. Nixon? Will it be a central role or will he be one of a group?

As I know, Mr. Greenspan does not intend to go into politics, he was working for Mr. Nixon, in effect as a dollar a year man, as a volunteer, not an employee, he has a business of his own, and as far as I know, he is not contemplating taking a job in Washington, he is at present still acting as Mr. Nixon's economic advisor, you know that he has been just recently appointed to act as Mr. Nixon's personal representative on the Budget Commission in regard to the budget which Johnson has to prepare, and on that Budget Committee, Mr. Greenspan will act in this interim as Mr. Nixon's representative, but that is all I know and of his plans, and is not really interested in practical politics as such, what was he during the campaign? Mr. Nixon's top economic coordinator, that is for internal affairs. There was another man, top coordinator of all the various advisors for Foreign Affairs. And Mr. Greenspan was the advisor for domestic affairs. And of course, an objectivist who is an economic adviser to a president, even temporary in a campaign is a marvelous sign for the country and for Mr. Nixon.

Preston in the balcony. Questions over here.

Yes, come on.

While I was agree with the speaker concerning the role of individual students in such matters as birth control and abortion, I wonder if the teacher would apply.

Individuals.

In such matters as suicide and.

Would you apply the same doctrines of individual choice as you do with regard to birth control and abortion to suicide and euthanasia?

But it's not the same issues, incidentally, because birth control and abortion specifically involve the actions of the individuals who are acting and to which they. The individuals have a right. They. They do not infringe anyone's rights. They act on their own. Now, suicide, it would appear to fall into this same category. I would say, yes, in principle a man has the right to commit suicide, but it is enormously inadvisable. Only you could not pass any kind of legal measure to prevent a suicide. You know, incidentally, they tried in Soviet Russia years ago, and I don't know whether they still have it, but they had a wave of suicides of party members in the twenties, the early revolutionists who were disillusioned. I passed a law that the penalty for suicide is death. So you see, that illustrates the problem in passing judgment on such an issue as suicide. One would have to say there are many moral reasons why a man should not take his own life. One would also have to say there are situations in which he may have perfectly valid reasons and it is his own life and there is nothing that the law or other people could do about. Now, euthanasia is more complex because here the life of another person is involved. And here I would say in principle, if a man in advance, not under the attack of pain, but maybe even then made arrangements that he does not want to have unbearable pain in his can be proved that this was his desire in such a case. In principle, I would say it is his right and the doctor's right. But it would be a horrible issue to attempt to put into law because I cannot quite project and I don't know whether anyone could, the safeguards that would have to be introduced in order to prevent any possibility of an unscrupulous doctor in Kakuts with unscrupulous relatives finishing somebody's life who is not in pain. It can always happen and the danger there is the arbitrary power of healing that is in this way would be legally given to the doctor. On the other hand, I would say there have been many such cases about which we do not know and probably should not know. And that I would have to say is up to the doctor involved. Only he can know if he is seeing a truly unbearable torture. And I almost feel like saying I would not assume to pass judgment on him. I truly don't know that he situation is too horrible. I can only say I lean in sympathy towards the position of the doctor who does help the patient to die if necessary. But I will not advocate it as a law.

I'm sorry.

I get it.

Listen hard. I think I have. If romantic love includes more than one person, what does this do to the institution of monogamy?

He says that's it to begin with. If you want to ask it in principle, fine. But I resent the nonsense of saying that Dykeney tagged in Atlas Shrugged was promiscuous. She had three men in her life, not simultaneously. Where have you been all your life? This is not only permissible, it is virtuous and moral. I have never said that marriage is the only proper form of romantic love. There is nothing wrong with a romantic affair if there are reasons why the couple cannot be married or if they are too young to marry. And that is not promiscuity, provided it is a serious feeling based on serious values. Now, as to more than one love, well now remember, men have free will. It is the Catholic Church who advocates indissoluble marriage. I don't. And in reason one cannot because man is not omniscient. He can make a mistake in his choice of partner, or the partner may change through the years and therefore a man may fall out of love, or so can. And a woman, if the partner he or she has chosen no longer lives up to the proper values. The better example of it to cite is Saint Reddin and his wife Lillian. He was romantically in love with her at first because he thought she was a certain type of woman and she deliberately faked the kind of image she thought he would want. And he got disappointed. Now he was very wrong in carrying on a secret affair with Danny. But what was wrong in it was not sex, but secrecy. The lie. An open relationship with as many men as you can meet if you are unlucky, but not several at a time his appropriate. Except that of course one cannot be unlucky, that often one would have to then check one's standards if one makes Constant mistakes. But as a principle of romantic love, one cannot say that only a single lifelong romance can properly call romantic. That is the ideal. If a couple achieves that, they are extremely lucky and they must have extremely good premises. But one can't make that the norm. Sometimes it is an exclusive single love for all time. Sometimes not. The issue to judge here, the moral principle is the seriousness of the feeling. And one gauges that by what kind of values is it based on? What is it that a person is attracted to in a man or a woman? And why? That is the standard of romantic love.

Further question up here, questions down here.

Yes.

The person turns on the gas.

And the building blows up.

Somebody running kind of an automobile.

I get it, I get it. This, this lady seeks to enlarge upon the potential consequences that may ensue from a suicide. For example, she uses to illustrate this. If a person under to commit suicide by way of the escape of gas and as a result, after the suicide is successful, the building blows up and innocent people are hurt, or if a person undertakes to commit suicide by throwing himself in front of a speeding car with consequences to the driver of the car and the passengers. What about that?

Well, this is the primary issue here. There is interference with the right of others, not suicide. Because if a man wanted to experiment with dangerous chemical in his apartment, for instance, and took improper chances and blew it up and killed the neighbor next door, that would be more or less the same situation as the man who is committing suicide fills his apartment with gas and dies, but also kills somebody else. This is two separate issues. If you are asking one out. Should a man, even if he's so desperate that he wants to commit suicide, still remain considered of the rights and lives of others? I would say yes, morally, properly, he should. Except one can never tell in what state of despair a man may be at such a time. But simply as a moral issue, if this is what you're asking, assuming that he's making a conscious decision to die, and he should properly, one shouldn't take one's life lightly and out of despair. It's too precious. And if he's making a conscious decision, then of course you should consider the means by which he'll do it. And he should not endanger the lives of others, as he should not have in hesitate.

Further question.

Yes.

What do you consider a relationship between, for example, one man and two men, if all is open, as immoral. As if you wouldn't.

Yes.

This gentleman asked whether you would consider a relationship. Please don't disturb the Meeting in these closing minutes, what would your reaction be to a situation of one man and two women thoroughly in the open? Would you regard this as immoral?

Not necessarily, but it would be a very rare occasion when it wouldn't, because one would have to know then the motives and the situation. Situation. It's a kind of no cowards designing living in reverse. In that way, there are two men and one woman who live together. You now have one man and two women. Well, it may be possible, particularly if he didn't choose them both at the same time. The only situation I can think of is the sort of stories where that usually happens with men. A man is presumed to be dead, his wife remarries, but she always loved him, and then he suddenly reappears. Well, supposing it's a situation like that in reverse. A man was married, then his wife disappeared. He marries another woman and he loves her, but he always loved his wife too, and then she reappears. Now, in such a case, this could be conceivably proper in they're honest about it and nobody cheats anyone and they understand what the situation is and all agree it's possible, but it's not very likely. And again, it's an almost liable situation. As a general principle, however, one would have to say this in regard to passing judgment on the romances of others, one has to be very careful. One doesn't really have to judge unless you are very sure that something improper goes on and then you don't want to deal with this person. But if you are not personally involved, I would say don't pass judgment on whether a given relationship is or is not romantically proper. You'd have to know an enormous lot about both persons before or you could pass that judgment. But if it is someone who you are involved, then of course everything is important and you want to know the past relationship of a person you're interested in in order to judge the standards, the values of a given person outside or z. Don't judge the personal life of others too lightly. An enormously different difficult subject. And you have to be very scrupulous with what you regard as objective evidence.

Question here.

Yes. Work to increase your views on natural comments on other laws regarding sex.

You have commented with regard to the laws of abortion and made your views clear. Would you also comment upon the other laws that are upon the book, such as unnatural sexual acts and bigamy and the rest of it?

Well, if by natural sexual acts you mean homosexual, I would say that all acts of laws of that kind should Certainly be repealed. By which I do not mean that I approve of such practices or regards them as necessary moral. But it is totally improper for the law to interfere in the personal relationship between two adults so long as it is done by adults with mutual consent. It is not the province of the law. There can properly be a law against corrupting the morals of minors. Children should be protected from any on molesting or attacking them. But adults in this respect should certainly be completely free. Now, bigamy is somewhat a different question. What you're asking is should the state undertake to suspend any kind of standards in regard to what it would consider legally a marriage? So that if in a given state a marriage supposed to be monogamous, only one wife and husband at a time. If a man, a bigamist, wanted to marry two women at the same time, I don't think that he should appeal to the law about it. The law should be uniform and there are certain good grounds why in most civilized countries all, I guess marriage is a monogamous institution. But if a man wants to have a wife and another woman, he doesn't meet the legality of bigamy if he's open about it. But of course, the kind of cases that one hears about is when a man has two legal wives in two different cities and leads a completely double life even under different names. And there's good ground to prosecute him legally and morally for more than his sexual relationship. But as I say, if he wants a relationship with two women, he does not need the law for sanction.

Further question here.

Yes.

Come on, come on, come on.

Ms. Rams, should the state prescribe the conditions of marriage or should it allow individuals to make the contract among themselves? Instead of laws where a person gets married and loses it, except for various.

War clause and everything, individuals will be.

Allowed to make any kind of contact.

I get it.

Should the state prescribe the legal methods by which a couple may marry? Or should this be left to the contractual desires of the given couple?

Do you mean the relationship or the marriage ceremony?

You mean the ceremony itself?

No, the contractual relationship.

The kind of relationship it would be.

What?

What this results in law. Yes, I get it. What can the state undertake to control the obligations of marriage by way of law?

Well, yes, and it is a very important and difficult subject for the following reason. The the issue of preserving the rights of children. Because if two people are married and the same even applies to unmarried couples only their issue of proof is more difficult. There is the possibility that they will want or by chance may have children and Once the child is born, he is entitled to support until such time as he self supports it. Therefore, there is a very complex issue here of protecting the rights of children. There is another complex issue, property rights. Now a husband and wife can certainly make any arrangements they want, but the law usually as it stands today, is a little bit too much on the side of the woman and it's a little old fashioned because. Because there was a time when the woman was at the economic mercy of her husband and today she is not. Not in the same way. And perhaps a great deal of irrationality and contradictions, particularly between different state laws. A great deal could be improved in the specific marriage laws of a country provide, provided the basic principles are not arbitrary, not clearly stated. You see, the government cannot undertake to enforce any kind of contract that you and a girl, let us say, would decide to make. If your contract falls under a certain legal category, then the government can undertake to enforce it. But you couldn't have some contradiction or something, perhaps impossible of enforcement and say this is your marriage contract, now you expect the government to enforce it. This is one of the reasons why there has to be uniform code of law, why individuals cannot make their own contract in that way. But strictly speaking, you know, it wouldn't be necessary. The proper marriage laws and even the ministry mixed ones of today are such that if two parties wanted to make a certain kind of legal contract about their relationship, I don't see Judy will correct me. I don't think the law would interfere.

You mean if they wanted, without a marriage license, for example, to undertake to say, you're my wife, you're my husband, we publicly announce it. Is that what you're saying?

Oh, no, I think that, that's not how I understood. That's not the ceremony, but the content of the marriage. What kind of relationship you in law?

Well, this of course will vary because we have, curiously enough, 51 sovereign states. We have the 50 states and each faith has its own laws which regard to the consequences visited upon those who marry. And then we have the sovereign. That's right. And then the sovereign, overall, the United States government, where insofar as federal territory is concerned, there you have the laws of the Congress. And so one would not be able to answer this in a specific question.

Yes.

Birth control. Which segments of this country and which countries probably would statistically have fewer births and at the same level, if the.

Catholic Church were to endorse birth control, which countries, including the United States and others, would have fewer births and would abstain?

I would not be able to answer that at all, I have no such statistics and the evidence on which to guess. Particularly since we do not know to what extent Catholics are obeying the birth control injunction. Certainly some of them do, and certainly this prohibition has made it very hard.

On many of them.

Still to make a judgment about the country as a whole, you have to have at least some idea how many Catholics are really practicing. I hope majority are not obeying Zen secretly, but nobody can know or guess.

Yes.

Come on. Wait a minute.

Go ahead, sir.

Has the economic situation gone too far?

Do you think that the economic situation has gone too far so that Mr. Nixon will find it impossible to avoid an economic disaster?

I wouldn't venture to say. I am not sure that even Mr. Nixon could say or Mr. Johnson or anyone. The situation is such today that certainly an economic disaster could occur at any moment. We're in a dreadful state. But nobody could say with certainty that it has to occur and that we may not perhaps have time to avoid a major collapse. That will certainly have economic trouble is nobody can predict the date. And I hope that you will not in effect form the idea that if some bad recession or depression happens during the Nixon administration, well, you see, it's the fault of the Republicans because that is the way it works. Each administration inherits a certain burden and has to untangle the consequences of the preceding one. Now, nobody knows when in the present state of the economy a collapse may occur, not a full collapse and a serious repression or depression, and precisely at that time that we would be very lucky that Mr. Humphrey is not in Washington. That is all I can say. But as to the specific journalistic economic state of today, I do not know. And even economic specialists disagree in their prediction about narrow range events.

Question upstairs.

Yes, come on.

Yes.

This question directs itself to your revelation of your opinion of social workers as a profession in the Fountainhead. And the question would like you to give your opinion with regard to the medical profession and the profession of nursing.

Well, I think they're very high, very intellectual, very desperately needed profession. I do not even understand opposite social workers, because remember I have Peter Keating as an architect and I have Rourke as an architect. There are good and bad men in every profession. What I am opposed to and what Katie in the Fountainhead represented is a certain kind of collectivistic, altruistic social worker, a person who goes injured under the influence. Influence of the philosophy held by her uncle, Ellsworth Tuig, who in that sense was a very bad influence on her and that her psychology is quite frequently encountered in social Work. But it doesn't mean that all social workers are necessarily frustrated tyrants. But doctors and nurses. I don't even quite know why you're asking me the question if I isn't rather guess. Isn't it your impression that since I don't think that human beings should be sacrificed sacrificial animals and shouldn't be sacrificed to others, that therefore any man or profession who does help others I would be opposed to? Since doctors, doctors and nurses are perhaps the most desperately needed profession at the time, when you do need them an enormous amount of skill and knowledge as to going to making either profession, why would you assume and place them in the category of social workers? I don't share today's idea. It is precisely the collective statist ideas that doctors should be regulated are most drafted as they have been in some countries controlled like under Medicare. Why? Because others need them. Well, I don't insult doctors in my mind by assuming that they are the willing self sacrificial animals. Doctors are professional men. When they are good, they deserve everything they make and nobody could pay them enough. In situations when they literally by their own unusual skills saved a life. I certainly approve of it. And as any good doctor will tell you, he's good. He does not go into it in order to help others in the altruistic status sense. He goes into it to fight disease. He is a scientist. He is for life. Not to help self sacrificially while he hates the job, but does it only for others. That type can never help anybody.

Further question up here. Questions here. Yes. Would governmental control of drugs and narcotics be consistent with objectivism?

By drugs do you mean medical drugs or narcotic drugs?

Well, no.

Government control of medical drugs is completely improper. The only appropriate thing would be that if somebody puts out improper drugs that cause harm or misrepresents the nature of the drug drug he's selling, that is what the laws against fraud are for. He should then be prosecuted if he is caught in peddling proper or fraudulent drugs. But government control does not prevent that possibility. And therefore if you speak about medical drugs, no, there should not be any government control beyond a quick annetician legal system where one could go to court and prove one's case if one discovers that some manufacturer drugs is dishonest. Now narcotics is something else. If you mean dog addiction, I would say even there the government should not forbid it except in the case of minors and children. Certainly doctors not be sold to children, but adults if they want again to hurt themselves at their privilege. Now I Understand that I'm not too sure. So it's merely as an indication that they tried in England, where they suspended the prohibition of drugs, narcotics, narcotic addicts could buy it open and they found that it minimized the use of drugs because then the drug addicts didn't have the incentive to push, as they said, you know, to sell the drug to young children and start new innocent victims because they need the money desperately to pay for underworld model drugs. I have since also heard that something went wrong with England's plan and that there were contrary reports. It didn't work out so well. So I say it only for whatever it's worth. It is an issue very much worth investigating. Theoretically, it does sound like it, that if you made the drug traffic open, you would cut narcotic addiction and you certainly would cut down crime. But that is an issue for doctors and criminologists.

Ultimately.

Yes. Mr. Ann, what is the objectivist view.

Of the concept of time?

What is the objectivist view of the concept of time?

Well, there cannot be such a thing as an objectivist view of time. This is really asking what is the objectivist view of the sun? So, system, you are asking a scientific question unless you put it in a philosophical form. That is, if you ask me, does objective in hold in metaphysical terms that time is absolute? In a way, Emmanuel can help. Is that the nature of your question, that does time exist apart from entities?

Is that your question?

That's what he says he had in mind.

In that sense, our position would in effect be Aristotelian. And Aristotle's position is that this is not his statement, this is our statement, but it is the same that there is no such thing as imperial independent time or space. The universe is finite and the concept of time applies to a relationship between entities. Specifically a measurement of motion, which is a change of relationship between entities within the universe, not outside. Time cannot exist by itself. It exists exists only in inside the universe, but it does not apply to the universe as a whole. Because time is merely a measurement of motion, a change of relationship between entities within the universe. Now, by universe, we mean the total of that which exists. There's no relationship to anything outside itself that it could have no motion, no change, and therefore no time. If you think of it as the.

Totality, how appropriate that the last question should deal with Khan. Let us now express our appreciation.