"The Moratorium on Brains" by Ayn Rand

Thank you very much, Ladies and gentlemen, I shall begin with a quotation. I quote hell. What it comes down to is that we can manage to as and where we are, but we can't afford to move. So we've got to stand still. We've got to stand still. We've got to make those bastards stand still. Unquote. If you have read Atlas Shrugged, you know the meaning and the relevance of this quotation. If you have not, I suggest that you read the first sequence of chapter three, part two. It will give you some idea of the political motives, philosophical goals, psychological mechanisms, intellectual stature and moral dignity behind an event such as the wage price freeze of August 15, 1971. But please do not think that sequence is literary naturalism. A journalistic report on the conference at camp David on August 13th 14th with the names changed to protect the guilty. It was published 14 years ago. If one knows the principles of behind a given policy, one can predict the direction it will take and the ultimate results. Besides, the progression of this particular policy has been repeated in country after country with consequences that no one but a modern newsman could take as news. The special twist in the case of Mr. Nixon is that his counterparts on the road to statism in other countries were not elected to office on the implicit promise to save the country from a statistrent. In spite of the usual pragmatist evasion, it was clear to his supporters and enemies alike that he was elected as a champion or semi champion of of free enterprise. If one needs factual proof of the danger of implicit promises, unnamed hopes, undeclared principles, I.e. of the futility and impracticality of playing it short range, Mr. Nixon is the proof. He is an immortal refutation of pragmatism. The worst thing one can say about Mr. Nixon is that he is sincere. A clever demagogue would not believe that one can protect a country's freedom by establishing the foundation, the principle and the precedent of a totalitarian dictatorship, Mr. Nixon apparently does. It used to be widely believed that the election of a semi conservative, a moderate, is a way of gaining time and delaying the statistic advance. President Eisenhower proved the opposite. President Nixon proved it conclusively. Their policies have not delayed, but helped and accelerated the march to statism. A major reason is the silencing and destruction of the opposition. If Mr. Nixon's program had been proposed by a liberal Democrat, the Republicans would have screamed their heads off either on some remnant of principle or at least on the grounds of narrow party interest. But when total economic controls are imposed by A Republican president in the name of preserving free enterprise. Who among today's politicians is going to protest and in the Name of what? Mr. Nixon's lip service to free enterprise is the most offensive aspect of his performance. It is adding insult to injury if one considers his estimate of the people's intelligence. But this is an objective conclusion. That is a conclusion based on judging statements by their relation to facts. It is not Mr. Nixon's viewpoint. He does not see that lip service he means as a pragmatist. He believes that anything is free enterprise if we believe it is. And nothing is dictatorship if you don't use that name. To him, apparently voluntary enslavement is neither a contradiction in terms nor the vilest form of. Of self abasing pretense. It is the central concept, the theme, the hope and the plea of his new economic policy. Quote, I am today ordering a freeze on all prices and wages throughout the United States for a period of 90 days, close quote, declared Mr. Nixon in the briefest paragraph of his speech on August 15, thus paralyzing the initiative, extinguishing the prospect, wiping out the plans, abrogating the contract, obliterating the personal choice, judgment and control over his own life of every individual in this country. A country in which a government official has been power to do this is not a free country. Quote. It is temporary, he explained two paragraphs later. To put the strong, vigorous American economy into a permanent straitjacket would lock in unfairness. It would stifle the expansion of our free enterprise system. How is a temporary straight jacket going to foster expansion? No answer. Unless you take the following as an implicit answer. If a man could manage to put on a straight jacket all by himself, it would not hamper his freedom of movement. But he can't. You say Mr. Nixon thinks that a nation can. I am relying on the voluntary cooperation of all Americans, he declared in the next paragraph. Working together, we will break the back of inflation and we will do it without the mandatory wage and price controls that crush economic and personal freedom. This means if you don't move, if you stand still, your freedom will not be crushed. Now a quote from a different source. Say ask how is the emergency to end if everything is to stand still? Don't be be theoretical, said Mauch impatiently. We've got to deal with the situation of the moment. Unquote. This is from the conference I mentioned in Atlas Shrugged. Counting apparently on the complete bound mentality of pragmatists, Mr. Nixon tried to reassure the country by asserting that dictatorial power is not dictatorial. Power if it is not embodied in the physical shape of a swarm of men, quote, While the wage price freeze will be backed by government sanctions if necessary, it will not be accompanied by the establishment of a huge price control bureaucracy, close quote. This is worse than controlled by bureaucracy. And this is the meaning Mr. Nixon attaches to the term voluntary controlled by fear. Either in the belief that his audience was asleep or as a final seal on the fact that words do not mean anything to Anyone any longer, Mr. Nixon permitted himself the freedom brought America where it is today. And freedom is the road to the future for America, unquote, in an address asking Congress to help him abolish the last of it. This is September 9th. The purpose of the freeze, Mr. Nixon kept repeating, is to stop inflation. But what is the cause of inflation? There is only one cause, as the science of economics and the history of wrecked economies have demonstrated time and time again, the expansion of the money supply to finance government spending. Mr. Nixon almost admitted as much. We have paid out nearly 150 billion in foreign aid, economic and military, over the past 25 years, he explained in his speech to Congress. If you are now asked to tighten your belt, to forego a raise you had counted on and earned, to lower your expectations and your standard of living, to accept a bleak future with no advance or improvement in sight, remember that foreign aid is the drain down which your work, your hope and your freedom have been poured. There were other domestic drains in the past 25 years, such as the welfare state programs. Now the US dollar, like a rubber check, is bouncing, marked account overdrawn. Mr. Nixon did not condemn the policy of his predecessor, quote, we have done this, he declared in the same speech, because we are America and America is a good and a generous nation, unquote. Sentimentality is embarrassing, even in a cheap popular song that used some such line as because you're you. But to hear that sort of explanation in regard to a national tragedy goes painfully beyond embarrassment. Am I speaking too low? Is that the mic working?

Yes, I am.

I'll try to make it louder. That line, however, is a clue to the deeper cause of the disaster. Unlike his counterparts in other lands, Mr. Nixon had no scapegoat to blame for our troubles. He merely hinted darkly at some undefined international money speculators who are somehow responsible for it all. Which raises the question of how did the makers of our foreign policy issue leave this country's fate at the mercy of such speculators and of any moment's panic? But look for the deeper cause. Can you hear Me now. Are they too high? Because I'm using my.

He's going to move the podium back. We're trying to remedy this. This, and we hope we'll be successful. Hold on a minute. The expert is here. Go ahead.

The auditorium is filled to capacity, and there is another room off to the side where several people are listening to Ms. Rand speak. As a result of that, because of the crowd, it is difficult for some people in the far reaches of the auditorium to hear her. And so now a student from the New England Conservatory of Music who regularly handles the audio for this program is rearranging the microphones. There are three microphones, two for the public address system and one for the radio. They have moved the podium back about 5ft and they are putting the microphones a bit closer so that Ms. Rand can be heard throughout the auditorium, in the adjoining room and on the radio. Audience.

Don'T take pictures of me. That's my normal volume. Can you hear me better now?

Wait a minute.

Is this better now? Can the back rows here?

There you are.

Now, as I was saying, that wine is a clue to the deeper cause of the disasters. Unlike his counterparts in other lands, Mr. Nixon had no scapegoat to blame for our trouble. He merely hinted darkly at some undefined, quote, international money speculators, unquote, who are somehow responsible for it all. Which raises the question of how did the makers of our foreign policy leave this country's fate at the mercy of such speculators and of any moment's panic? But look for the deeper cause. You can see its claw prints all over Mr. Nixon's speeches. The rusty claw in a marshmallow glove which is the. The insignia of altruism. No one could hope to get away with those speeches or with the policies they proclaimed or with the decades of suicidal policies that led to it, if it were not for the magic power of the call to self sacrifice, not the power of people believing it, nobody believes believes in it. But worse, the power of people's fear to admit that they don't. Mr. Nixon set the tone and example of that fear, apparently to reassure any moral cannibals, foreign or domestic, who have become used to human sacrifices. Quote, the time has come to be our ourselves again, still compassionate, pouring out our wealth to all of those in need around the world when we can, still with a sense of responsibility toward others in the world, still ready to help those who need help. Unquote. This at a time of national financial distinction. Disaster speech to the Knights of Columbus, August 17. Quote. But the United States of America at this time in history must maintain the strength in the free world to provide the help that others aren't able to provide for themselves. Unquote from the same speech. This means we must maintain our strength not because we have the right to exist, but only in order to help others. Quote A strong and healthy spirit means a willingness to sacrifice. And Americans are willing to sacrifice when a short time personal sacrifice is needed in the long term. Public Interest addressed to Congress, September 10th. How short that time period is or is intended to be? No answer. In some countries it's been 50 years and longer. Quote what happening to the willingness for self sacrifice that enabled us to build a great nation? To the moral code that made self reliance a part of the American character? To the competitive spirit that made it possible for us to lead the world? Labor Day speech, September 6th. The proper answer is is your happening, Mr. President and a long long line of men who taught you this notion. But Mr. Nixon's philosophical ancestors knew better than to offer a combination of this kind and worked very hard to undercut men's self reliance. They knew that self reliance. Self reliance is the antithesis of self sacrifice. Self reliance is a product of self esteem. And a man of self esteem does not regard himself as a sacrificial animal. The man who does has nothing to rely on. It's either or to preach self reliance in the context of a government edict tying men hand and foot would be sadistic cruelty if anyone took it seriously. But most people do not even hear it. They accept reproaches by conditioned reflex. As to the notion of competitive spirit, it is an interesting clue to Mr. Nixon's dilemma. He was obviously struggling to whip up a crusade. And a crusade requires something strong, uplifting, inspiring. But the concept he needed since he was calling for productivity is taboo in the altruist code personal ambition. So he picked a ludicrous substitute, a non essential which is shameful if and when it serves as a primary motive. Competitiveness. Competition is a byproduct of productive work, not its goal. A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others. And with whom does Mr. Nixon want us to compete? With the same foreign country countries we are supposed to serve self sacrificially? Or are we asked to help them get on their feet in order to punch them in the jaw as soon as they stand up? As for instance, West Germany and Japan. But even this image of an envy ridden competitive second hander as a national ideal is is better than the following Catalog of inspirational goals apparently. Inspirational quote. We need a healthy and productive economy in order to achieve the great goals to which we all are so firmly committed. To help those who cannot help themselves, to feed the hungry, to provide better health care for the sick, to provide better education for our children, to provide more fully for the aged, to restore and renew our natural environment, and to provide more and better jobs and more and greater opportunity for all of our people. Unquote addressed to Congress. Who is missing from this hospital litany? The men who are missing from all of Mr. Nixon's speeches, policies and concerns. The men whose existence, character and needs are never mentioned or acknowledged. The men who are expected to provide it all. The men who do not join an aristocracy of pool, do not seek favors, do not function by permission, do not bargain with government boards, and do not cooperate at the point of a gun. The man of creative ability, of intelligence, integrity and ambition. The atlases who have been shrugging and vanishing for many decades by psychological necessity, not by conscious choice. The fundamental need of such men is freedom. The mind does not and cannot work under compulsion and control. Whether consciously or not, such men give up whenever a society becomes a huge hospital with the relief of suffering as its primary goal. They are not inspired by the role of an ambulance chasing humanitarian. Their motive is the pursuit, the discovery, the creation and the love of values, not the hair shirt of an eternal bondage to suffering. In various degrees this is true of most men on any level of ability. Altruism was not the motive of those who accepted the freeze, but it was as it has always been, the rationalization, the excuse, the COVID up. Their guilt is the fear of challenging the Smokestein of altruism, the refusal to see through it, the failure to assert their rights. And perhaps this phrase will make it clear to many people why I regard altruism as our worst, most dangerous enemy and as the antithesis of capitalism and freedom. If you did not quite see it Theoretically, Mr. Nixon is giving you a lesson. Listen. Practically. The public reaction to the wage price freeze was a significant indication of this country's intellectual state. The general public's response was predominantly approval. It could not be claimed that this indicates popular approval of statism. Few people would understand the meaning and the necessary consequences of the freeze, particularly when a chorus of bipartisan voices assures them that freedom is not endangered. But what the popular reaction does indicate is the preamble to ignorance, helplessness, confusion, despair. People sense that the country keeps, cannot go on in its present state much longer and feel blindly that somebody ought to do something about it. The danger is the do something. That is the uncritical reliance on action, any action, in order to be pulled out of the growing chaos, the hysterical screaming and the gray silent crumbs warning wrought by the spreading quicksands of a mixed economy. The reaction of the country's political leaders was just as ominous, but less innocent. Discussing the views of what it describes as, quote, a host of distinguished grandstand quarterbacks in Washington. A story in the New York Times on September 5 indicates general approval of the freeze. Then report on answers to some questions. Quote, should the freeze be followed by a full scale program of wage price control with the issuance of daily regulations on everything from the price of pickles to the wages of household servants? The answer was an almost universal no. No witness before Congress favored it. The President has long been appalled by the idea, unquote. I do not know what convolutions of Jamesian, Keynesian fog enables US national leaders to evade the knowledge that the courts they have chosen leads of necessity to full scale controls. But I do believe that most of them do not want a totalitarian economy. And this is one tragic aspect of today's situation. We are being pushed to destruction not by avowed enemies, but by reluctant destroyers. It is pragmatism that permits them to hope, to avoid somehow the consequences of their own policy, to find a loophole in the law of causality, to have their freedom and eat it too. Later, when they are trapped by the consequences they refuse to to consider, they will call for controls and more controls, crying that they didn't mean it and couldn't help it. This is the way it happened in other countries. As to the reaction of the major economic groups, it was American industry that welcomed the freeze and labor that did not. Labor, in fact, was the only significant groups that opposed Mr. Nixon's edict with properly righteous defiance and obtained some temporary concessions. According to the Times, August 17, quote, Many businessmen hail particularly the psychological lift they anticipated from the decisive program to tackle basic economic problems. This series of moves lands the boil of pessimism, said one of them. An important aspect of Nixon's program is the elimination of uncertainty. Close quote, said another. Believe it or not, it is the government's arbitrary, unpredictable, unanswerable powers that he hates as a cure for uncertainty. And this right after Mr. Nixon's series of sudden reversals in regard to the future review Board. George Meany has made plain labor's preference, even insistence on a tripartite structure that is equal numbers of union, industry and public representation industry leaders have given equally strong, though much less public, noticed that they would prefer an all government board. Close quote from the Times, September 6th. As a group, businessmen have been withdrawing for decades from the ideological battlefield, Disarmed by the deadly combination of altruism and pragmatism. Their public policy has consisted in appeasing, compromising and apologizing. Appeasing their crudest, loudest antagonists. Compromising with any attack, any lie, any insult. Apologizing for their own existence, Abandoning the field of ideas to their enemies. They have been relying on war lobbying, that is, on private manipulations, on pool, on seeking momentary favors from government officials. Today, the last group one can expect to fight for capitalism is the capitalists. Organized labor has been much more sensitive to the danger of government power and much more aware of ideological issues. Its spokesmen have fought the government in proper, morally confident terms whenever they saw a threat to their rights, to name a few examples of such occasions. The attempt at labor conscription in World War II. The issue of U.S. contributions to the Soviet dominated international labor organization. President Kennedy's attempt to impose guidelines in the steel crisis of 1962. Labor's concern was aroused only in defense of its rights. Still, whoever defends his own rights defends the rights of all. But labor was pursuing a contradictory policy which could not be maintained for long. In many issues, notably in its support of welfare state legislation, labor violated the rights of others and fertilized the growth of the government's power. And today labor is in line to become the next major victim of advancing statism. It was business, not labor, that initiated the policy of of government intervention in the economy. As long ago as the 19th century, and business was the first victory, labor adopted the same policy and will meet the same fate. He who lives by a legalized sword will perish by a legalized sword. Today's freeze is obviously directed against labor. The wage price spiral, which is merely a consequence of inflation, is being blamed as its cause, thus deflecting the blame from the real culprit, the government. But the government's guilt is hidden by the esoteric intricacies of the national budget and of international finance, which the public cannot be expected to understand. While the disaster of nationwide strikes is directly perceivable by everyone and gives plausibility to the public's growing resentment of labor unions. Furthermore, the theoretical, partly Marxist foundation of labor's continent has withered away. Organized labor is not the exploited underdog any longer. It is a prosperous middle class systematically attacked and undercut by the lumpen proletariat. The Intellectuals of the new Left. In economic fact, organized labor is not responsible for the inflationary spiral. But since labor is backed by compulsory unionization, it is responsible for unemployment. Thus there is an unidentified ground for the public's resentment which the status are exploiting to their own advantage and which labor's once courageous theoreticians dare not face, just as the advocates of governmental favors to business did not and do not dare face the contradictions of their case. Now we have reached the logical climax of a mixed economy, the stage at which the unlimited power of the government is the only ideological constant in the tangle, switching theoretical equipment of all social groups. The manifestations of the tangle are all around us. Mr. Nixon believes that as as long as he tries to protect industry's profits, he is protecting free enterprise. Businessmen hail the freeze because they believe that this particular administration is more sympathetic to their interests than to labors with no thought of what will happen to them at the hands of another administration a year, or at most five years from now. And labor, in the person of George Meany, declares that the freeze is, quote, a form of socialism for big business, unquote, which is true. Then proceeds demand a freeze on profits while demanding more social benefits and more jobs to be financed and provided by what and by whom? Like there is a name for a system of socialism for big business. It is called fascism. I have stated repeatedly that the trend in this country is toward a fascist system with communist slogans. But what all of today's pressure groups are busy evading is the fact that neither business nor labor nor anyone else except the ruling clique gains anything under fascism or communism or any form of statism, that all become victims of an impartial egalitarian destruction. By what is probably a curious coincidence, Mr. Nixon called the freeze a new economic policy and the I see that you noticed, and the press has accepted the name, along with the abbreviation nep. These were the names of the Soviet policy introduced by Lenin in 1921 after a period of strict military communism. But there is a significant difference, and it's this. In Russia, the original NEP and its later variants, prompted by economic crisis, consisted in lifting some controls and allowing the citizens a modicum of freedom in order in order to revive some degree of productivity, after which the controls were clamped down again until the next crisis in the United States. The nep, prompted by an economic crisis, consists in imposing controls on the remnants of freedom. In this respect, the Soviet rulers seem to have a better understanding of economics. The American people's precarious acceptance of the Freeze rests on a single false premise that the government knows what it is doing. A great deal of evidence is required not to notice the open admissions to the country. Mr. Nixon, his associates, the commentators, the press have been speaking of bold experimentation, of imagination, of improvisation, of flexibility. In this pragmatist laboratory, we are the guinea pigs. And while the people hope that the government will do something, the government hopes that the people will do something somehow to make the unworkable work. The program announced as phase two confirms the fact that the government has no program. The Times on October 9th describes it as follows, quote. Faced with contrary pressures from special interest groups for a fast2 wage price program tailored to differing desires, President Nixon is seeking to resolve the conflicts by giving all sides a little something to cheer about. Mr. Nixon came up with a tripartite board on pay, a public commission on prices and rents, and a government counsel over both groups. Along with built in uncertainty as to which group will exercise greater authority. It's ingenious, declared a lobbyist for one segment of the nation's banking community and one official of the Cost of Living Council, acknowledging White House efforts to satisfy everyone, observed succinctly. Smart man, that president. These boards have been given an unlimited and undefined power over the entire economy without any standards, principles or rules to guide their Egypt. Their edicts, we are told, are to be fair, that is just and flexible, that is arbitrary, which is a contradiction in terms. There is only one standard of justice in the field of economics. The verdict of a free market. No other standard can be or has ever been defined in the absence of of a standard. These boards can be guided by nothing but chance, pressure, pull and whim, regardless of the personal character or intentions of their members. Non objective law is a virulently destructive social phenomenon. But this is worse than non objective law. It is non objective personal power without any pretense at formal law. These boards represent represent the institutionalizing of rule by fear and favor. It is a grave error to suppose that the dictatorship rules a nation by means of strict rigid laws which are obeyed by and enforced with rigorous military precision. Such a rule would be evil, but almost bearable. Men could endure the harshest edicts, provided these edicts were known, specific and stable. It is not the known that breaks men's spirits, but the unpredictable. A dictatorship has to be capricious. It has to rule by means of the unexpected, the incomprehensible, the wantonly irrational. It has to deal not in death, but in sudden death. A state of chronic uncertainty is what men are Psychologically unable to bear. Close quote from my article Antitrust the Rule of Andrinsen in The Objectivist Newsletter, February 1960 no, I do not believe that Mr. Nixon wants to be a dictator. But if you throw a noose around a man's or a nation's throat and keep tightening, makes no difference whether you want to be a murderer or not. In view of the fact that Mr. Nixon's whole structure, along with all of its underlying policies, maneuvering, manipulations, deceptions and anti ideology, rests on a single hope arise in the country's productivity, it is grimly ironic that this structure cuts off and paralyzes the man it needs most. The men who raise a country's productivity. There is no pressure group to represent the men of intelligence, the non conformists, the originators, the innovators. And yet it is against their brains that any freezing program is directed. Nothing can raise a country's productivity except technology. And technology is the final product of a complex of sciences, including philosophy. Each of them kept alive and moving by the achievements of a few independent minds. Such minds do not function on the expediency of the moment. The better the mind, the longer the range. Scientists, inventors, discoverers, work and plan in terms of decades. To a pragmatist or a politician, 10 years is the unknowable. To a great mind pursuing a great achievement, it is just one step. The stepless competence required for such work is based on certainty. Not the certainty of guaranteed success, but the certainty of one's freedom to take calculated and 10 incalculable risks. Can you see such a mind venturing out on such a road with the knowledge that a single sentence broadcast over the air without warning can stop him dead at any moment? Can you see him pleading with a board for permission to continue? Can you see him entering the game of pressure politics and wriggling his way through a maze of of boards with built in uncertainty in their functions? If not, then you know what this country will lose and what incalculable loss it has sustained already, in the form of a traumatic shock of helpless discouragement, sustained by a young mind on hearing Mr. Nixon's freezing bombshell. A young mind that could have become a skyrocket lighting the world, but will never be heard from or seen. And we will never know how many hopes have formed plans and have grasped visions died in lesser men that night along with the best within them. Oh yes, there are men who will adjust. But they are not the kind that raise a country's productivity. For a preview, take a look at the Public characters, their private characters are often different. Of two groups of men who live under non objective law, businessmen under the rule of antitrust legislation and broadcasters under the rule of the fcc. If you observe their timidity, their uncertainty, their great conformity, their stale superficiality, their lack of life, of fire, of color, of self assertive ambition, you can see the image of what will become our national character under Mr. Nixon's new economic policy. Favors are not a substitute for rights and fear is not an incentive to ambition. Fear makes people shrink in moral and mental stature and draw away from action. It is precisely this kind of shrinking, he calls it self sacrifice, that Mr. Nixon expects. Even though distorted by a mixed economy. The essential demands of living legitimate economic groups are not arbitrary. A businessman cannot run his business at a loss. A worker cannot continue working if he cannot meet his expenses. What is Mr. Nixon demanding of them? Renunciation. The shrinking of their ambition to grow and of their standard of living. Fear and priority can accomplish this. But ask yourself what this will do to the growth of productivity. Mr. Nixon's immediate intention is clear and probably deliberate. He has set up a choice of scapegoats. First, the blame for the coming disasters will be placed on one board or another, or on their various members, or on the groups they represent. Then the blame will be placed on the victims, that is the people, and on freedom. Observe Mr. Nixon's insistence pleas for the people's voluntary cooperation. Quote but government with all of its powers does not hold the key to the success, success of a people. That key, my fellow Americans, is in your hands. Whether we hold fast to the strength that makes peace and freedom possible in this world or lose our grip, all that depends on you. Close quote speech of August 15th. The next phase is to declare that people, greed, selfishness and lack of faith have defeated the bold experiment. That volunteerism and freedom were given a chance but failed, and therefore that stronger measures are necessary. The rest is history, the kind of bloodily, monotonously repeated history that men are still refusing to learn from. No, no one can predict how long this process will take, or what twists, delays, disguises and momentary illusions of safety will prolong it, or how much the resilient vitality and persevering energy of the American people will be able to stand. It may be here, it may be longer, but such is the end of the trail we are following if we continue to follow it. The symptoms to expect are a general spread of physical and spiritual shoddiness in people, in professional services, in industrial products, shortages, black markets, corruption, favor, peddling temporary controls and more temporary controls and possibly a runaway inflation. Time does not permit me a fuller discussion of what such a system does to man's psychology. But I suggest that you read or reread the last sequence of chapter seven, part two of Atlas Shant. It will show you the effects and the causes of a national freeze better. And I can do it here privately. I call that passage the Damnation Sequence. The chapter is called the Moratorium on Brains. Thank you.

Yes. I would like to ask if you are familiar with an essay by R.A.

Childs, the Episcopal basis of anarchism. And if you are familiar with that.

You intend an answer to it.

And if you do not consider it worthy of an answer, why not?

Hold on a minute. All right. Pardon me. Are you familiar with this essay by Charles I on the epistemological background of anarchism? And if you agree with it or you disagree with it, why, and I.

Am not familiar with it.

Well, friends, in your article.

You described.

A deplorable state of state university. You spoke of the intellectual vassals and the pressures which are designed to cripple the mind. In your advices and your stress.

Will.

You give your reasons for advising the students in the academic world to stay in and not leave in view of your caustic criticism of what takes place in the academic world?

Because you never want to help your own destroyers. Since the purpose of the type of educators which are not exclusive monopoly today, but are certainly the majority. If that type's purpose is to defeat your mind, they can do it in one of two forms. By your helpless weakness and submission while you're in school, or by forcing you out of the school. In either way, they either cripple the best minds of the students or deprive the best minds or the most independent ones of education. It is never necessary to quit for two reasons. One, there still are some good teachers. Granting that they're in a minority. You can't wait for a better world when the better people will be a majority. You have to fight for it yourself. Therefore, there still are some good professors. There certainly are students, a great many of them, who are trying to resist that influence. After all, I made it clear in that same article that man is not a determined being human. His education can help him, or can hinder him, or hamper him, but it cannot make or break him. He has free will, and his free will consists specifically in the use of his mind. Therefore, he can remain imperious to the influence of his educators if he does some critical and clear cut Thinking on his own. Which means, if he doesn't accept his teacher's own blind face, nor criticize them blindly, if he listens to them and he hears that he doesn't agree, or things don't make sense to him, let him answer in his own mind, why? Why is this wrong? What does he know which would prove it wrong? And very frequently he is able to say that right in class. If his teacher is too hopelessly intolerant, then he, the student doesn't have to make himself a martyr, but he learns, even in reverse, preserves his mind and gets his diploma. Incidentally, I graduated from a Soviet Russian university, the University of Leningrad. No conditioning that you're subjected to could be compared to what I went through. Thank you. I want. Want to add. I am glad that you don't have to go through that. And therefore it can be done. You can survive today's schools.

I'd like to know how you.

Come.

To the conclusion that free will is the choice to think. And is that the first cause if free will is the choice to think, how do you come to that conclusion?

I have written approximately, so my publishers tell me, 5,000 words. That was several years ago, so the list is longer by now. I cannot repeat them here in five minutes. I would only suggest that you read two things and then you'll find a great many elaborations. Gold speech in Atlas Shrugged and my essay, the Objectivist Ethics in the Virtue of Selfishness. After that, maybe that's up to you. You may graduate to reading Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. That would give you the foundation.

Do you think that the federal government should be compelled to pay property taxes to the local municipalities where the federal government owns land?

Well, I have never heard that kind of proposal. I'm not sure it will work. But on the face of it, simply as a good thing to throw at them, or let's say it's a very eloquent joke, I would approve of it as that as a slogan, I'm not sure it is applicable. You'd be better off if you started cutting taxes down. But as a slogan, it would be fascinating.

Way back, friends, the great. Do you believe in capital punishment?

My answer would have to be yes and no. From two different aspects, if you ask me. In principle, do I believe that a man who has deliberately and consciously killed another human being, do I believe that he should forfeit his life? I would say yes. If it's first degree murder, yes. Morally, I think he deserves it. But the argument against capital function, the valid one, is the fact that human beings, including juries, are not infallible, mistakes can be made. And when it comes down to what is better not, I don't mean better for society, I mean what is morally just to let 10 guilty men go rather than execute one innocent man, then certainly by the proper American principle, you place innocence above guilt. And therefore it's better to condemn real murders to jail for life rather than take the life of one innocent man, because a miscarriage of justice is always possible. So in that sense, solely on epistemological, not moral grounds, I would be against capital punishment morally. However, I think the idea, the act of deliberately taking another life is so monstrous and so irreplaceable, or rather nobody can atone for it, that even death penalty is too small a punishment for a murder.

May I make a suggestion for some of the students who may be interested in this? When you get to the library, call for Professor Borchar. Convicting the Innocent. Borchard was a professor at Yale Law School and he compiled an entire volume on people who had been found guilty and whose innocence was later demonstrated. And many of them were already dead. Borchard V O R C. He was professor at Yale Law School, and it's called Convicting the Innocent. This gentleman who is waiting so anxiously in the aisle. Is it ever moral for a government to do what is immoral for a group of individuals to do? To do what a group of men. That would not be moral for an individual to do.

That's too general a statement, you know, because, for instance, you can make the following. Is it moral for one group of men to do something which is permitted to another group? And you'd find it's moral for a certain group to practice medicine, but it's not moral for quacks to do so. Well, the same applies here. Before you ask question in these terms, you have to define in what respect and what kind of function. If you mean in general terms, is there a double standard governing the performance of an individual or of a government, then of course I would say no, because every government is based explicitly or implicitly on some theory of morality, rightly or wrongly. Therefore, the morality as such would be equally applicable to the government, to individuals and to groups. But as to their functions and the kind of specific actions they perform, that depends. That depends on their profession. There are certain things which only the government has the right to do, and that is to use force not in. Not to initiate the use of force, but to use it in retaliation and in the protection of the individual individual rights. Of citizens who delegate that power to the government for one purpose only, to avoid the non objective, blind role of force. Because a proper government's use of force is the limited, defined, prescribed and circumscribed. A proper government does not use use force arbitrarily, which is why it's the one necessary group to use police force in protection of rights.

This question says she read somewhere that you consider all forms of homosexuality immoral. If this is so, why?

Because it involves psychological flaws, corruptions, errors or unfortunate premises. But there is a psychological immorality at the root of homosexuality. Therefore, I regard it as immoral. But I do not believe that the government has the right to prohibit it. It is the privilege of any individual to use his sex life in whichever way he wants it. That's his legal right, provided he is not forcing it on anyone. And therefore the idea that it's proper among consumers, dissenting adults is the proper formulation. Legally, morally, it is immoral. And more than that, if you want my really sincere opinion, it's disgusting.

Just one minute. This we don't permit, we don't commit. Now, you demonstrate intelligence by a question. The question is put, it is answered. Anyone can make an unpleasant noise. A child can do it. It takes a brain to put a question. Now convert your. I invite the person who hissed to put a question when I get over there. Come on, Come on, my dear.

It has been stated in a bulletin issued by a group who claim to.

Be students of Objectivism that ethics no longer requires saints. Will you comment upon the statement that ethics no longer requires saints? A statement attributed to a group of students who are believers in objectivism.

Doesn'T require what?

Saints.

Saints? I know as little about such nonsense as I do about any such group. And if you have observed how carefully I try not to sanction, not to permit the sanction of my name to be stolen by any group to the point where I sometimes may have to offend innocent young people trying to study Objectivism rather than sanction the guilty one. In an intellectual matter, it matters, and this kind of issue is the perfect proof of it. What honors do they mean by being students of Objectivism? If that is what they do, it is too early for them, until they have really learned it, to talk about moral pronouncement. You graduate from being a student when you no longer have to use the name of your teacher. They do not have. My main objection, and I hope this information will be transmitted to whoever, whomever it might concern. My objection to all groups of this kind is as Follows, there is nothing wrong in using ideas, anybody's ideas, provided you give appropriate credit, you can make any mixture of ideas that you want. The contradiction will be yours. But why do you need that? The name of someone with whom you do not agree? In order to spread your misunderstandings, or worse, your nonsense and falsehood? I don't know what the concept of a saint means. If it means in the strictest sense a religious figure, then how could it ever be appropriate to objectivism? Objectivism is an atheist philosophy. We do not recognize saints, angels or God. But the word has also been used in a secular term by saints. Very often people mean a person of perfect moral character or a moral hero. And that is what objectivism requires of its first novices, just of the buck privates. We don't want anybody bad things in the moral sense, which is open to each man according to the extent of his ability. But please, anything which you do not hear from me or read under my name, do not accept it as in any way emanating from or representing objectives. If you want to know what Objectivism is, learn it from me and my publications. Nobody else is authorized to speak for me. And if he doesn't want to speak for himself, then you know what to think of him.

Do you believe that it would be possible for the government to move forward with a program completely predicated upon your ideas at this time?

No, not this month, not this year, and maybe not this century. The best that the government can do is stop moving in the direction of dictatorship and collectivism and slowly start moving towards freedom. And the way to do it is very simple and it's even been done in some countries throughout history. Decontrol when in trouble, instead of imposing new controls, try to remove a few crucial ones in the areas of the economy which you know are badly affected. And then gradually, if you want a plan, I can give it to you. Then gradually, when the time is right, announce that within five years or whichever the time all government subsidies, government handouts, welfare state payments, all, all of it will be abolished. But give the people enough time to make other arrangements because today everybody helplessly is tied in his livelihood one way or another to the government start removing those chains. You can't do it overnight, but boy it can go much faster than the process of destruction has been.

Your friends do think or even too.

Early to tell whether in the 72 election as a result of the replacement by a more stated democrat would put the country in the biblical online first ultimately for statism, either because the democrat.

Is more stated or Would in the.

Long run it slowed it down because Republicans would normally capture the election.

Would you care to project yourself into the results of the 72 election? Do, do you foresee that if Mr. Nixon was defeated and if a Democrat who might be more statist even than Nixon were elected, do you believe that this would result in a revulsion on the part of conservative Republicans who might be driven to an anti statism and therefore be given an opportunity to show their displeasure with what Nixon has done?

No, I don't think so. Because the conservative Republicans, conservative in today's sense of the word, which I'm not and which does not mean pro freedom or pro capitalist, the conservative Republicans are worse than Mr. Nixon and I think I would even prefer Humphrey to the conservatives to Nixon. No, I did advocate or endorse him, not very enthusiastically but on the premise of the lesser of two evils. But by now it doesn't even matter. There are no degrees of evils. I agree with George Minion only one thing and even the then I'm not sure. He was asked what he would do if Mayor Lindsay of New York was the Democratic candidate and Minnie said I would vote for Nixon. I almost feel that way. Except that I'm afraid I couldn't make myself do it simply on moral ground. Because after all it is letting a man get away with an unspeakable series of turn coating because that's all that he is a plain turncoat. Now a man can have a change of mind and if he changed his mind and rightly or wrongly said, well you know, I don't know how to run the country except by this and I know it's controls but nobody has offered anything better and I changed my mind for such and such such reasons. You could still have at least some respect for him. Not when he turns right around and if you study his speeches, every alternate one or every two is playing both sides. He will give you some slogans, if you pro freedom and then he will give the welfare status a few more. And I don't believe that can be done fully innocently. Except he thinks that that's patriotism. Why? Because pragmatism taught him that. But at this coming election I don't think it would matter whom we got in there. The only two persons who might be worse is it's a conservative party, George Wallace of Alabama or Lindsey, because Lindsey also is a terran cotta. Well, it's a race between him and Nixon. But you see today's situation proves why I have been saying for a long Time. A country's practical politics do not determine its fate. Today it doesn't really matter what they do. A president cannot re educate a country. It's a machine to today, really without a driver. The government is. It's driven by pressure, group conflict. Where can the salvation come from? Only from education, from ideas, from colleges, from the intellectuals. The politicians can't do it. They never could. But today there is a peculiar kind of vacuum we don't yet have, have, and I hope will never have, and the credit of this country that no Fuhrer has yet appeared to take advantage of this kind of chaos. Because Nixon obviously is not a Fuhrer. And that's fine. He's a mediocrity. So are all the prospects. I don't mean to single him out. And some are worse than others. But so long as there still is that kind of no man's land, they are afraid of the people. So was every European dictatorship. It tightened its power only about two to five years after it acquired full power. Because they're always trying to see what they can get away with. Therefore, and Nixon and the press today are obviously waiting to see what they can get away with. Well, we still have time. If you ask me how I would say speak, speak and speak anywhere, to anyone, in any form you can, by which I don't mean force your views on unwilling listeners. I don't mean you have to be evangelists and save their souls. But people are in such confusion that whenever you can clarify even one point for them in your own circle, in a letter to an editor in a school paper, that is what makes the public opinion of a country. That's what helps people who may be less brave or more ignorant. It helps to bring them out. That is what puts the fear of God in the politician who needs it. And left.

Come on. I, I, I couldn't hear. I'm sorry.

What do you think of the current libertarian movement? I don't.

What do you think of the consequences of the libertarian movement?

I don't know know what that is. I have heard of all kinds of groups calling themselves liberals and libertarians and something else New Right. And you Left? I don't know. It is not a movement. If what you mean is something that calls itself the New right, which is that consists of hippies, but they're anarchists instead of collectivists, which is the same thing, of course. The idea of free enterprise, the one system that requires absolutely objective law, or as much objective that man can define. And they want to combine capitalism and anarchism. That you know is worse than anything the New Left has proposed because it's really a mockery of any philosophical, political or ideological idea. It's simply slinging slogans and trying to ride on two bandwagons. Those are the men who want to be hippies, but they don't want to preach collectivism because those jobs are already taken. So they think they can do the same by preaching anarchism. And if you look up in any children's encyclopedia, if it includes such word, anarchism is an outgrowth and a logical one of the extreme anti intellectual side of collectivism. It is the collectivism of the spirit. I would deal with a Marxist with much greater chance of reaching some kind of understanding and much greater respect. The anarchist is really the scum of the intellectual world of the left. The left has given them up and grown beyond it. So the right picks up another discard of the left and me too. Now, if those are the movements you mean, that's what I think of them.

Standing and thought he was recognized. Come on, way and back.

Way in back.

I'll come to you in a minute. Do you know any work that is being done to apply your work to the foundations of mathematics? Have you tried to do anything?

No, I can't do everything. I have quite a few jobs right now. As to anyone else, I have heard two young men of different specialties express an interest in doing something like that in the future. But they still have a long way to go before they can undertake it. Sooner or later there might be, which I'll be very glad to hear about, provided it's done in their own name.

Now, this gentleman in front row.

Will.

You discuss the moral issues and moral conflicts consequences of a businessman who might as want to contest and disobey the issues and the rules in phase one or two?

Well, he wouldn't have a chance. And he would only make himself a martyr if his idea of protest would be simply disobedience. That wouldn't do him or anyone else any good. If a businessman wanted to fight it, he should fight it on political, ideological grounds. He should protest and if he has a good case, make a test case out of it. But not simply cheat and make himself a martyr and vanish from circulation or lose his business. I never believe it's necessary to create martyrs. And martyrs don't accomplish very much. If a businessman undertook only this much, try to influence about a dozen other businessmen not to issue the kind of statements I was quoting here and not to permit the American association of Manufacturers if it still exists in the American Chamber of Commerce to issue the kind of statement that they are issuing. He will do infinitely more for himself, for liberty, and for this country, because they have done more than any other group. To bring on collectivism and disobedience now is much too late and futile. It's ideas that are needed.

What do you think of Mr. Ellsberg's expose of the Pentagon Papers?

Not very much. Not of his particular action. I have barely even followed whatever it is he thinks he is doing. I don't know. And care less as to the Pentagon Papers themselves. Well, you know, was fairly obvious if you read the papers at the time what was going on and that if anybody should be disgraced now, it's actually the press. Because why didn't they report it at the time? They may not have had the verbatim conversation of some private councils, but they certainly saw the trend on events. And an awful lot of verbatim statements from the people being exposed now were sometimes published on the back pages somewhere. I think the first disgrace is of course, to the American press, I mean, as a result of those papers and the rest to democratic presidents. And now there's going to be a third. One.

Further question here. Come on. Why do you. You said at the conclusion of the third Ayn Rand newsletter that you still held some hope for the country. Why?

Well, because I have spent about two weeks of working all night, once till literally eight in the morning, to write the answer in my newsletter. It will be a long article in two parts, and I cannot state briefly the reasons in the manner I will state them in the letter. I can only indicate one thing, if you know what I mean by a concept of a sense of life, which is a subconscious subverbal philosophy. The sense of life of this country, which really means the influence of the original philosophy of this country, is not like the European one. In fact, in many respects it's the opposite. And therefore what they got away with Europe, they cannot get away with here. By there I mean the collectivist and the status not today. And as I say in the conclusion of my article, since subconscious premises or philosophy is not an eternal endowment. Take a couple more generations, educated as they are today, and it's possible the dictatorship would be feasible even in this country, because then people are subconsciously conditioned to the type of premises that destroyed Europe, I don't think they can succeed yet. What I do think is that we can be in terrible trouble. It is possible we would have a civil war fought blindly by contestants who would know what they're fighting for anything is possible, but. But not dictatorship. That I don't think would hold here. The American people are still too free minded, too individual. And as I say in my article, they don't like being pushed around. It's a very good sign that it's an American expression. You'd never hear it in Europe. For further detail, read the newsletter.

This gentleman says that you have written an article and have said that the Constitution of the United States was airtight insofar as capitalism was concerned. Now he desires to know whether or not you have made any effort to draw up your own Constitution.

The answer is no to both parts of the question. I never said any such thing. I didn't say it was airtight. I specifically typically said it had contradiction and flaws which destroyed capitalism even in Atlas Shrugged. At the end I indicate a judge writing amendments to it to a proper, properly restored constitution, which incidentally would be the job of a lawyer, a judge, a felon, philosopher of law, which is a great and very complex specialty. I wouldn't dream of writing a constitution. Sort of at home between doing other job.

Will you give your opinions on the foreign policy of the present administration?

Well, will you tell me what the policy is? All I can say it's just as inconsistent as the domestic policy. I had hoped almost that the recognition of of China was Nixon's play against Russia, but that isn't what it is. In a disgraceful performance at the un I would say the office boy of Monaco could defeat Mr. Nixon in any foreign negotiations, let alone the Chinese communists. They are at least smarter when it comes to that kind of level of politics.

What are your thoughts on the morality of abortion? And as preliminary to that, how do you define a human being?

A human being is a living entity and life starts at birth. An embryo is a potential human being. Naium might argue that medically doctors consider an embryo alive at, I don't know, six months or eight months. Well, no woman in her right mind would have an abortion that late because it's enormously dangerous to her. Therefore, nature is consistent in the interests of both. There. That's my definition of a human being in the context of your question because I know what you're driving it. However, what's my position on abortion? I wrote a three part article on that and I delivered a lecture on it here in this form analyzing the papal encyclical. And my lecture and article were entitled Of Living Death. I am in favor of abortion, of birth control, of everything connected with sex, and as an absolute right of the parties involved and of no one else. I also believe that the right of a living human being comes above any potential human being. I never equate the potential with the actual in any issue. But what's more important, if you're going to make a case for the fact that a potential human being is entitled to life, then I would say all of us are murderers. Every moment that we don't spend in bed trying to reproduce.

Come on. What is your opinion on gun control law?

I do not know enough about it to have an opinion. I only do believe that it's not of primary importance. I do not believe that forbidding guns or registering them is going to stop criminals from having them. Nor do I believe that it will be a great threat to the private citizen if he. I mean a non criminal citizen if he has to register the fact that he has a gun. I don't know. It's really not very important unless you are ready to prepare a private uprising right now. And I don't think that's very practical. Come on. As a parent, I recognize the fruit.

Of what they're saying and I would.

Like to know what positive suggestions would make to a parent and if a parent implemented them and utilized them in dealing with the child would enable prevent the destruction of the past.

Mom, what practical and positive suggestions do you have to a parent who is eager to take steps so as not to destroy the child's mind and to keep the child eager?

The best, best antidote is the Montessori system of education. Education which I have mentioned in Kamprashiko's article and also there was an article in my magazine, the Objectivist, on the Montessori method. Montessori system, however, deals primarily with nursery school. That is, it gives a proper foundation to a child after which he would be safe and impervious. If you send him to the worst of today, high schools, he may not be very happy, but they won't affect him if he's had a Montessori training. More than that, there are two books which were reviewed in the Objectives which are called Teaching Montessori in the Home, which is for parents who cannot afford a private nursery school or who find it. There is none in their particular district. They are very good books. It's by Elizabeth Hainstock and it's called Teaching Montessori in the Preschool Years and the School Years in two parts. And she covers precisely this subject and covers the advice, specific, practical advice to parents on how to start your child on the Montessori method and how to help him Thereafter, when he goes into a public school. Also, I understand that there are Montessori groups which are beginning to develop, possibly a high school based on the Montessori method, because there are writings on that subject, but not as detailed as on the kindergarten or nursery school level. And there are already attempts or plans being made to carry that system further, which I think would be the greatest movement in this country so far, the most hopeful, and what's wonderful about it is that it was completely grassroots, unorganized, unplanned. It was groups of parents who started schools for their children because they were appalled at what was being done to the children. So called progressive nursery school. There's no vested interest, no particular push behind the movement. It is truly spontaneous and it is spreading and with marvelous results. Therefore, any questions in regard to child education, start with Montessori's own books and then look into the existing Montessori schools. Not all of them are fully reliable. Some of them are slightly mixed, or trying to combine two different systems. But still, you learn more. Your child will learn more than you will get anywhere else today.

Come on. Come on. The reason that I laugh is I predicted when I was talking to Ms. Rand in the Green Room, that a question like that would be asked. But I'll repeat it. Are you working on a new novel? And if so, can you say when you expect to finish it?

At the moment, no. As I told you last year, I was working. But during this year, I've made a significant change in my publication. That is, instead of the Objectivist magazine coming out once a month, I'm now publishing the Ayn Rand Letter, which comes out twice a month, or rather fortnightly, and that takes up great deal of my time, particularly the organization and the transition to this new form. So at the moment, I can do nothing else. My ultimate plan is to organize my time in such a way that I would be able to work on the novel systematically. But at present, it's the beginning of a very complex undertaking. And so, in all honesty, I have to say no. Not right now, I'm not. But I do hope I won't be giving you an excuse each time that I come here, so someday I may announce it. But don't push me. I truly don't know.

I recognize your right to school, to your property as you see fit.

That is not what my question is.

Now, that's a comfort. I heard that subscriptions to the Object. Objectivist, because of letters some subscribers sent to you.

Is this true?

Is it? Is it? Is it true that you Canceled some subscriptions to the Objectivist because of letters that some subscribers had written to you. Is this true? And if it is true, why?

I don't know whether it's taking place recently because I don't read those letters. My office has certain instructions and are carrying them out. My staff and my attorneys taking care of that. Yes, I most certainly cancel subscribers for the following reasons. Not if they disagree with me. It's their loss. If they write a lot of nonsense, fine. They want to express themselves, I don't have to read it. It's when they are rude and crude and begin a letter something like, well, you know you're wrong and go on up from there. Those letters go to the cancel subscription. Not literally those words, but it's the pretentious and the presumption of rudeness. It is not an issue of ideology. It is an issue of manners. I do not accept the modern manners. And I don't think I have to engage in conversation or offer a service to somebody who doesn't know how to disagree with me if that's what he wants. Politely.

Are you presently preparing a major work on epistemology? Are you presently preparing a major work on epistemology? And if so, when will it be published? And for the benefit of some here, I suspect. What is epistemology?

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy which deals with the theory of knowledge. In fact, the most important part of philosophy, it deals with the such questions. How does man acquire knowledge? What can he regard as proper knowledge? How can he validate his conclusions? And what the world he perceives, which is of course metaphysics. But can he even perceive it? That's an issue for epistemology. No, I am not writing that today. If I live long enough, I think I will. I haven't given it up. I have pile of notes for it. But no, not now. Come on. Who is your favorite sculptor?

Who is your favorite sculptor?

I don't know his name. Whoever did the Vinus de Milo. It's my favorite statue. I suppose technically, I would say Michelangelo is the greatest of of any sculptors we know. Unfortunately, I don't quite like his sense of life. But artistically, certainly the greatest is Michelangelo.

Question over to him. Come on.

When a necessary condition was will this.

Be the explicit presentation of the child? Would the explicit necessity of explaining to the child who is undergoing and receiving instruction at a Montessori school as to the importance of thinking enable him when he goes to the public school later on and can face up with that which might come confuse him to Be able to avoid the difficulties. Is that a fair question? That's it.

No, you cannot explain not only the importance of, but even what is sinking to a child of six. Because Montessori nursery schools are only for children between the age of three and I believe, five, maybe six. But by the time a child goes to public school, he's still too young to understand what you mean by thinking. And it's certainly much too young to give him theory. That takes a great deal of conceptual development on his part. You don't really begin to explain theory till about adolescence. If he's very precocious and he brings up the subject, you might teach him a few principles. That's not what Montessori does. She does something much more important. She trains a child's psycho epistemology. Now, the term is mine, not hers. But what she writes about is what I call psycho epistemology. The method of thinking she develops. Her system is aimed at deliberately, unconsciously, which I think is an achievement of genius, to develop the conceptual ability in a child's mind. She writes explicitly about what she wants to teach a child is not the content of any particular ideas, but the method required to acquire ideas, to bring order into a child's mind so that he wouldn't feel. Feel a stranger confused in the world. From memory, not an exact quotation from her, but the exact meaning of what her purpose is. Therefore, she wants to train a child's ability to deal with cognition and with concepts, which is precisely the ability that the progressive education schools are devoted to the destroying for. A child will not be. Will have no guarantee that he'll always sing the right song. But look, no adult has a guarantee ever what a child. The protection he will have against public schools is that his method of mental functioning in the most crucial formative years of his life will be set and with some assistance on his part. Because nothing is automatic. It will be set for life. But he has a good chance because he's already grasped the method of how to deal with percepts and then concepts. That's what the Camprechicos are destroying.

Yes.

Come on.

Do you associate communist propaganda with the hatred of America's youth towards capitalism?

Probably some of it, but that certainly is not the major cause. Yes, certainly the communist would try to influence anybody in the world they can reach, including American youth or American old age, for that matter, to influence them with hatred for capitalism. But they're not the cause. They wouldn't have the power to corrupt a whole generation of Americans or take over all of the universities. It isn't a communist conspiracy. It's our own patriotic, perfectly respectable American professors, particular of philosophy, social sciences and the humanities. They arrived at their ideas without any help from Russia. And it's true that some of them are probably losing money by not being a communist agent, because they're very, very valuable to the communist cause. Only that's not what's behind them. Immanuel Kant is behind them, and of his descendants and consequences.

Will you comment and elaborate upon what is it that makes the male the dominant one in the sexes?

No, I won't, because I'll have to. To go into the psychology of the sexual act. And I think that's a proper subject for doctors, maybe some psychologists, but not for me, nor is it my great interest. Try to figure it out. Come on.

Just a minute, please. All quiet, please.

He said to the other gentleman that the rebuilding of times and institutionalism and capitalism. I wonder who also believe that politics predict philosophy of life. How will philosophy be linked with the real prospect? And what future are you going to?

Well, one at a time, my dear. How effective will politics be in the rebuilding of America as you projected it?

I don't write utopias. I don't know nor care. A great many variants in the rebuilding of a country are possible. What one has to know, one thing at a time is also appropriate as an answer here. What one has to know is what are the preconditions of the rebuilding of a country? And if you look at what caused the disaster and what is lacking, you see that the first thing that was corrupted and you can trace historically and left, led to the corruption of all the rest is philosophy. Why philosophy? Well, because it's the fundamental science. It's the base of all other sciences, of all other types of knowledge. There's four. It's like the wholesaler of knowledge, if you will. It affects all the retail scientists and it affects everybody. Therefore, that's where we have to begin. But you don't have to wait until. Until everybody is a philosopher. Because ideological movements are always the concern of a minority. Which minority? Whoever is interested and wants to work at it. And then he influences others by endorsing and explaining the right ideas to the best of his ability. That's how it has to start. In what form we arrive at politics is impossible to foretell now because it is not past probability even or possibility. Let's hope that there'd be open civil war and breakup in this country and violence. And what state would politics be in then? Or total economic collapse. The abrogation of all government obligations, which is national disaster, and everybody has to start from scratch, Everything gone that's possible. So how are you going to decide what political process is going to operate at that time? The one thing you have to know is what ideas will be operating at the time. Because in desperate situations, people do need leadership, and it's either the worst extreme that can win or the best. The middle of the road is through practically now intellectually and every morally and every other way. Therefore, it'll be either statism or freedom. And who will win? Well, if you look at past history, whoever has the better philosophical case. But if one side is well organized, has indoctrinated a large number of intellectuals, and the other is just sitting and awakening every four years at an election time. And of course, the status side will win because they've worked with it, they have spread ideas. And while they predominantly believe in materialism and believe that ideas are impotent and men can do nothing anyway or can know nothing yet, they spend all of their effort on spreading ideas. Whereas the advocates of freedom who believe that the mind matters, or even in the religious sense, the soul matters, they sit doing nothing. Therefore, the ultimate and first concern is how many people will know what is the right social system and will be active in supporting it when the collapse comes in one form or another, or if it doesn't come, it's easier. But the question still remains, before a trend is changed, how many people know the right case in whole or even in part? You don't all have to be professional philosophers, you just have to be consistent and not the right answers. If there are enough people on the right premise. Thank you. Then, of course, the outcome, it will be very, very hopeful. Particularly in this country, if there aren't, no politics in the world will save you, as they have never saved any country.

The time has now come to express our deep gratitude to Ms. Rand.