"The Wreckage of the Consensus" by Ayn Rand

Back to this platform, Ms. Ayn Rand, who has appeared a number of times and who rejoices the heart of the forum very much because Ms. Rand tells me this is the one forum that she, in recent years has come to, as you all know, and your very presence indicates your knowledge. Ms. Rand is a distinguished author. She has provoked much discussion and undoubtedly will do so again tonight. She has expressed her opinions fearlessly and has undertaken to examine the problems of the day and has written the results of these examinations. Her topic is the Wreckage of the Consensus. It is a great pleasure for me to present Ms. Ayn Rand.

Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen. Two years ago, on April 18, 1965, I spoke at this forum on the subject of the new fascism ruled by consensus. I said, quote, the clue to the core essence, motive and real meaning of the doctrine of government by consensus is the cult of compromise. Compromise is the precondition, the necessity, the imperative of a mixed economy. The consensus doctrine is an attempt to translate the brute fact of a mixed economy into an ideological or anti ideological system and to provide them with a semblance of justification. Close quote. The brute facts of a mixed economy are gang rule, that is, a scramble for power by various pressure groups without any moral or political principles, without any program, direction, purpose or long range goal, with the tacit belief in rule by force as their only common denominator, and unless the trend is changed, a fascist state as the ultimate result. In September of 1965, writing in the Objectivist newsletter, I said, quote, contrary to the fanatical belief of its advocates, compromise does not satisfy, but dissatisfies everyone. It does not lead to general fulfillment, but to general frustration. Those who try to be all things to all men end up by not being anything to anyone. Close quote. It is startling to observe how rapidly this principle took effect in an age that takes no cognizance of principles. Where is President Johnson's consensus today? And where, politically is President Johnson to descend in two years, in an era of seeming prosperity, without the push of any obvious national disaster, to descend from the height of a popular landslide to the status of a liability to his own party in the elections of 1966 is a piece that should give pause to anyone concerned with modern politics. If there were any way to make compromise work, President Johnson is the man who would have done it. He was an expert at the game of manipulating pressure groups, a game that consists of making promises, friends, and keeping the second, but not the first. His skill as a manipulator was the one characteristic that his Public image builders were selling us at the height of his popularity. If he could not make it, no amateur can. The practical efficacy of compromise is the first premise that Johnson's history should prompt people to check. And I believe a great many people are checking it. People but not Republicans, or at least not all of them. Not those who are now pushing an unformed, soft shelled thing like Romney to succeed where a pro has failed. What are we left with now that the consensus has collapsed? Nothing but the open spectacle of a mixed economy's intellectual and moral bankruptcy, the random wreckage of its naked mechanism, with the screeching of its gears as the only sound in our public silence, the sound of crude range of the moment demands by pressure groups who have abandoned even the pretense at any political ideals or moral justification. The consensus doctrine was a disguise, a shoddy cheesecloth one, but still a disguise to give a semblance of theoretical status to the practice of plain gang warfare. Today even the cheesecloth is gone, leaving the anti ideology to function in the open more brazenly than ever. A political ideology is a set of principles aimed at establishing or maintaining a certain social system. It is a program of long range action, with the principles serving to unify and integrate particular steps into a consistent course. It is only by means of principles that men can project the future and choose their actions accordingly. Anti ideology consists of the attempts to shrink men's minds down to the range of the immediate moment, without regard to past or future, without context or memory, above all without memory, so that contradictions cannot be detected and errors or disasters can be blamed on the victims. In anti ideological practice, principles are used implicitly and are relied upon to disarm the opposition, but are never acknowledged and are switched at will when it suits the purpose of the moment. Whose purpose? The gang's. Thus men's moral criterion becomes not my view of the good or of the right or of the truth, but my gang, right or wrong. This is what makes today's public issues and discussions so sickeningly false and futile. Most issues rest on so many wrong premises and carry so many contradictions that instead of the question who is right? One is constantly and tacitly confronted with the question which gang do you want to support? For example, consider the issue of the war in Vietnam. Everything is wrong about that hideous mess, but not for the reasons which are shouted most loudly. Starting from its designation, a cold war is a brazen contradiction in terms. It is not very cold for the American soldiers killed on battlefield, not for their families, nor for any of US. A Cold war is a typically Hegelian term. It rests on the premise that A is non A, that things are not what they are, so long as we don't name them. Or practically speaking, things are what our leaders tell us they are. And unless they tell us, we have no way of knowing. This sort of epistemology is not working too well, even in regard to the ignorant hordes of Russian peasants. That this should be attempted in regard to American citizens is perhaps the most disgraceful symptom of our cultural disintegration. When men are being killed by a foreign army in military action, it is a war, a whole war and nothing but a war, regardless of what temperature anyone chooses to ascribe to it. But observe what advantages the Hegelian terminology offers to the leaders of a mixed economy. When a country is at war, it has to use all of its power to fight and win as fast as as possible. It cannot fight and non fight at the same time. It cannot send its soldiers to die as cannon fodder, forbidding them to win. When a country is at war, its leaders cannot prattle about cultural exchanges and about building bridges to the enemy as our leaders are doing trade bridges to bolster the enemy's economy and enable it to produce the planes and guns which are killing our own soldiers. A country at war often resorts to smearing its enemy by spreading atrocity stories, a practice which a pre civilized country need not and should not resort to. A civilized country with a free press can let the facts speak for themselves. But what is the moral intellectual state of a country that spreads smears and atrocity stories about itself and ignores or suppresses the facts known about the enemy's atrocities? What is the moral intellectual state of a country that permits its citizens to stage parades carrying the enemies the Viet Cong's flag or to collect funds for the enemy on university campuses? What makes this possible? The claim that we are not allegedly at war, only at Cold War? A country's morale is crucially important in wartime. In World War II, the British Lord Haw Haw was properly regarded as a traitor for the crime of trying to undercut the British soldier's morale by broadcasting scare stories about Nazi Germany's invincible power. In a Cold War such as we have today, Lord Hoho's job is performed by our own public leaders. The sickening scare stories about escalation, about our fear of war with China would be morally shameful if indulged in by the leaders of Monaco or Luxembourg when they come from the leaders of the most powerful country on earth. Shameful is not an adequate word to describe their moral meaning. If a country knows that it cannot fight another country, it does not undertake to fight. If a country is actually weak, it does not go into battle screaming, please don't take me seriously, I won't go very far. It does not proclaim its fear as proof of its desire for peace. There is only one sense in which that ghastly phenomenon has to be classified as a non war. The United States has nothing to gain from it. Wars are the second greatest evil that human societies can perpetrate. The first is dictatorship, the enslavement of their own citizens, which is the cause of wars. When a nation resorts to war, it has some purpose, rightly or wrongly, something to fight for. And the only justifiable purpose is self defense. If you want to see the ultimate suicidal extreme of altruism on an international scale, observe the war in Vietnam. A war in which American soldiers are dying for no purpose while whatever. This is the ugliest evil of the Vietnam War. That it does not serve any national interest of the United States. That it is a pure instance of blind, senseless, altruistic, self sacrificial slaughter. This is the evil, not the revolting stuff that the Vietnamese are howling about. None of us knows why we are in that war, how we got in or what will take us out. Whenever our public leaders attempt to explain it to us, they make the mystery greater. They tell us simultaneously that we are fighting for the interests of the United States. And that the United States has no selfish interests in that war. They tell us that Communism is the enemy. And they attack, denounce and smear any anti communists in this country. They tell us that the spread of Communism must be contained in Asia, but not in Africa. They tell us that Communist aggression must be resisted in Vietnam, but not in Europe. They tell us that we must defend the freedom of South Vietnam, but not the freedom of East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Latvia, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, tango, et cetera. They tell us that North Vietnam is a threat to us, but Cuba is not. They tell us that we must defend South Vietnam's right to hold the democratic election. And to vote itself into communism if it wishes, provided it does so by vote. Which means that we are not fighting for any political ideal or any principle of justice, but only for unlimited majority rule. And that the goal for which American soldiers are are dying is to be determined by somebody else's vote. They tell us also that we must force South Vietnam to accept communists into a coalition government. A process by which we Deliver China to the communists. Which fact we must not mention. They tell us that we must defend South Vietnam's right to national self determination and that anyone upholding the national sovereignty of the United States is an isolationist. That nationalism is evil, that the globe is our homeland and we must be prepared to die for any part of it except the continent of North America. Is it any wonder that no one believes the pronouncements of our public leaders any longer? Neither the American people nor foreign nations. Our anti ideologists are beginning to worry about this problem. But in their typical style, they do not say that somebody is lying. They say that there exists a credibility gap. Observe the term in which the war in Vietnam is discussed. There are no stated goals, no intellectual issues, but there are apparently two opposing sides which are designated not by any specific ideological concepts, but by images which is appropriate to the primitive epistemology of savages. The hawks and the doves. But the hawks are cooing apologetically and the doves are snarling their heads off. The same groups that coined the term isolationist in World War II to designate anyone who held that the internal affairs of other countries are not the responsibility of the United States. These same groups are screaming that the United States has no right to interfere in the internal affairs of Vietnam. Nobody has proposed a goal which if achieved, would terminate that war. Except President Johnson, who has offered a billion dollars as the price of peace. Not a billion dollars paid to us, but a billion dollars paid by us for the economic development of Vietnam. Which means that we are fighting for the privilege of turning every American taxpayer into a serf, laboring part of his time for the benefit of his Vietnamese masters. But demonstrating that irrationality is not a monopoly of the United States. North Vietnam has rejected that offer. No, there is no proper solution for the war in Vietnam. It is a war we should never have entered. To continue it is senseless. To withdraw from it would be one more act of appeasement on our long shameful record. The ultimate result of appeasement is a world war as demonstrated by World War II. In today's context, it may mean a nuclear world war. That we let ourselves be trapped into a situation of that kind is the consequence of 50 years of a suicidal foreign policy. One cannot correct a consequence without correcting its cause. If such disasters could be solved pragmatically, that is out of context, on the spur and range of the moment, a nation would not need any foreign policy. And this is an example of why we do need a policy based on long range principles that is an ideology. But a revision of our foreign policy from its basic premises on up is what today's anti ideologists dare not contemplate. The worse its results, the louder our public leaders proclaim that our foreign policy is bipartisan. A proper solution would be to elect statesmen if such appeared with a radically different foreign policy, a policy explicitly and proudly dedicated to the defense of America's rights and national self interests, repudiating foreign aid and all forms of international self immolation. On such a policy we could withdraw from Vietnam at once and the withdrawal would not be misunderstood and the world would have a chance to achieve peace. But such statesmen do not exist at present in today's conditions. The only alternative is to fight that war and win it as fast as possible and thus gain time to develop new statesmen with a new foreign policy before the old one pushes us into another cold War, just as the cold war in Korea pushed us into Vietnam. The institution that enables our leaders to indulge in such recklessly irresponsible ventures is the military draft. The question of the draft is perhaps the most important single issue debated today. But the terms in which it is being debated are a sorry manifestation of our anti ideological mainstream. Of all the statist violations of individual rights in a mixed economy, the military draft is the worst. It is an abrogation of rights. It negates man's fundamental right, the right to life, and establish the fundamental principle of statism that a man's life belongs to the state and the state may claim it by compelling him to sacrifice it in battle. Once that principle is accepted, the rest is only a matter of time. If the state may force a man to risk death or hideous maiming and crippling in a war declared at the state's discretion for a cause he may neither approve of nor even understand, if his consent is not required to send him into unspeakable martyrdom, then in principle all rights are negated in that state and its government is not man's protector any longer. What else is there left to protect? The most immoral contradiction in the chaos of today's anti ideological groups is that of the so called conservatives who posture as defenders of individual rights, particularly property rights, but uphold and advocate the draft, by what infernal evasion can they hope to justify the proposition that creatures who have no right to life have the right to a bank account? A slightly higher, though not much higher, rung of health should be reserved for those liberals who claim that man has the right to economic security, public housing medical care, education, recreation, but no right to life, or that man has the right to livelihood but not to life. One of the notions used by all sides to justify the draft is that rights impose obligations. Obligations to whom and imposed by whom. Ideologically, that notion is worse than the evil it attempts to justify. It implies that rights are a gift from the state and that a man has to buy them by offering something his life in return. Logically, that notion is a contradiction. Since the only proper function of a government is to protect man's rights, it cannot claim title to his life in exchange for that protection. The only obligation involved in individual rights is an obligation imposed not by the state, but by the nature of reality, that is, by the law of identity consistency, which in this case means the obligation to respect the rights of others if one wishes one's own rights to be recognized and protected. Politically, the draft is clearly unconstitutional. No amount of rationalization, neither by the Supreme Court nor by private individuals, can alter the fact that it represents involuntary servitude. A volunteer army is the only proper, moral and practical way to defend the free country. Should a man volunteer to fight if his country is attacked? Yes, if he values his own rights and freedom. A free or even semi free country has never lacked volunteers in the face of foreign aggression. Many military authorities have testified that the volunteer army, an army of men who know what they are fighting for and why, is the best, most effective army, and that a drafted one is the least effective. It is often asked, but what if a country cannot find a sufficient number of volunteers? Even so, this would not give the rest of the population a right to the lives of the country's young men. But in fact, the lack of volunteers occurs for one of two reasons. One, if a country is demoralized by a corrupt authoritarian government, if its citizens will not volunteer to defend it, but neither will they fight for long if drafted. For example, observe the literal disintegration of the Tsarist Russian army in World War I. 2. If a country's government undertakes to fight a war for some reason other than self defense, for a purpose which the citizens neither share nor understand, it will not find many volunteers. Thus, a volunteer army is one of the best protectors of peace, not only against foreign aggression, but also against any warlike ideologies or projects on the part of a country's own government. Not many men would volunteer for such wars as Korea or Vietnam. Without the power to draft, the makers of our foreign policy would not be able to embark on adventures of that kind. This is one of the Best practical reasons for the abolition of the draft? Consider another practical reason. The age of large mass armies is past. A modern war is a war of technology. It requires a highly trained scientific personnel, not hordes of passive, unthinking, bewildered men. It requires brains, not brawn, intelligence, not blind obedience. One can force men to die. One cannot force them to think. Observe that the more technological branches of our armed services, such as the navy and the air force, do not accept their teeth and are made up of volunteers. The draft, therefore, applies only to the least efficacious and, in today's conditions, the least essential part of our armed forces, the infantry. If so, then is national defense, the main consideration of those who advocate and uphold the draft. The practical question of the country's military protection is not the issue at stake. It is not the chief concern of the draft supporters. Some of them may be motivated by routine, traditional notions and fears. But on a national scale, there is a deeper motive involved. Observe the terms in which the draft is being debated today. The main reason advanced for the continuation of the draft is not military, but financial. Financial. Ladies and gentlemen, it is generally considered that the draft is unnecessary. But it is argued that a volunteer army would cost too much. As matters stand, the army is one of the lowest paid groups in the country. Adapted soldiers pay in cash or equivalent, that is, including room and board, amounts to about $1 per hour. To attract volunteers, it would be necessary to offer higher pay and better conditions, thus making an army career comparable to the standards of the civilian labor market. No exact estimates of the cost of a volunteer army have been offered, but the approximate estimates place it at about $4 billion a year. Hold this figure in mind, ladies and gentlemen. Hold it while you read about our national budget in the daily papers. And while you hold also clearly and specifically the image of what this figure would buy. The years from about 15 to 25 are the crucial formative years of a man's life. This is the time when he confirms his impressions of the world, of other men, of the society in which he is to live. When he acquires conscious convictions, defines his moral values, chooses his goals and plans his future, developing or renouncing ambition. These are the years that mark him for life. And it is these years that an allegedly humanitarian society forces him to spend in terror. The terror of knowing that he can plan nothing and count on nothing, that any road he takes can be blocked at any moment by an unpredictable power that, barring his vision of the future, there stands the gray shape of the barracks and perhaps beyond it, death. For some unknown reason, in some alien jungle, a pressure of that kind is devastating to a young man's psychology. If he grasp the issue consciously, and still worse if he doesn't, the first thing he's likely to give up in either case is his intellect. An intellect does not function on the premise of its own impotence. If he acquires the conviction that existence is hopeless, that his life is in the hands of some enormous, incomprehensible evil, if he develops a helpless, searing contempt for the hypocrisy of his elders and a profound hatred for all mankind, if he seeks to escape from that inhuman psychological pressure by turning to the beatnik cult of the immediate moment, by screaming, now, now, now. He has nothing else but that now. Or by dulling his terror and killing the last of his mind with lsd. Don't blame him, brothers. You asked for it. This is what $4 billion would buy. This is what it would spare him and every other young man in the country and every person who loves him. Remember, down what drains our money is being poured today. According to the federal budget for fiscal year 1968, we will spend 4.5 billion on foreign aid and allied projects, 5.3 billion on space project programs. $11.3 billion are just one of the many, many departments dealing with public welfare. Yet we claim that we cannot afford $4 billion to save our youth from the agony of a mangling, brutalizing, psychological torture. But of course, the real motive behind that social crime is not financial. The issue of cost is merely a rationalization. The real motive may be detected in the following statement made by Lieutenant General Louis B. Hershey, director of the Selective Service System, on June 24, 1966. Quote, I am not concerned with the uncertainty involved in keeping our citizenry believing that they owe some to their country. There are too many, too many people that think individualism has to be completely recognized, even if the group rights go to the devil. Close quote. The same motive was made fully clear in a proposal which was advanced by Secretary of defense Robert S. McNamara and is now being plugged with growing insistence by the Press. On May 18, 1966, Mr. McNamara said the following, quote, as matters stand, our present selective system draws on only a minority of eligible young men. That is an inequity. It seems to me that we could move toward remedying that inequity by asking every young person in the United States to give two years of service service to his country, whether in one of the military services in the Peace Corps or in some other volunteer developmental work. At home or abroad, close quote. Developmental work devoted to whose development. Apparently planting rice or digging ditches in Asia, Africa and South America constitutes service to the United States, but preparing oneself for a productive career does not. Teaching our own illiterates in hillbilly regions or city slums constitutes service to the United States, but going to college does not. Teaching retarded children to weave baskets constitutes service to the United States, but acquiring a PhD does not. Isn't the unnamed principle clear? Developing yourself into a productive, ambitious, independent person is not regarded as a value to the United States. Turning yourself into an abject, sacrificial animal is. This, I submit, is a moral obscenity. Whatever country such a principle could apply to, it is not the United States, it is not even Soviet Russia where they do destroy the minds of their youth, but not in so mawkishly wantonly senseless a manner. That proposal represents the naked essence of altruism in its pure and fully consistent form. It does not seek to sacrifice man for the alleged benefit of the state. It seeks to sacrifice them for the sake of sacrifice. It seeks to break man's spirit, to destroy his mind, his ambition, his self esteem, his self confidence, his self during the very years when he is in the process of acquiring them. Mr. McNamara's trial balloon did not go over too well. At first there were outcries of protest and indignation which compelled the government to issue a hasty disclaimer. Quote, the Johnson administration said the New York Times of May 20, 1966, quickly made it plain today that it had no plans to draft young Americans for civilian duty or to let such duty become an alternative to military service. Close quote. The same news story said that, quote, officials called upon to interpret McNamara's words stressed that he had suggested asking rather than compelling young people to serve. Close quote. Well, I want to stress that if a government intends to ask rather than compel, it does not choose the Secretary of Defense to do the asking, And he does not ask it in the context of a passage dealing with the military draft. The suggestion of voluntary service under a threat to one's life is blackmail. Blackmail directed at the entire American youth, blackmail demanding their surrender into explicit serfdom. After that initial suggestion, obviously as an intermediary step to condition the sacrificial animals, the statist altruist gangs began to plug the notion of voluntary social service. On September 14, 1966, James Reston of the New York Times quoted President Johnson as saying, I hope to see a day when some form of voluntary service to the community and the nation and the world is as common in America as going to school when no man has truly lived who only served himself, close quote. The motivation of all this is obvious. The draft is not needed for military purposes. It is not needed for the protection of this country. But the statists are struggling not to relinquish the power it gave them and the unnamed principle and precedent it established. Above all, not to relinquish the principle that man's life belongs to the state. This is the real issue and the only issue. And there is no way to fight it or to achieve the abolition of the draft except by upholding the principle of man's right to his own life. There is no way to uphold that right without a full, consistent moral political ideology. But that is not the way the issue is now debated by the frantic anti ideologists of all sides. It is the conservatives, the alleged defenders of freedom and capitalism, who should be opposing the draft. They are not. They are supporting it. Who brought the issue of the draft into public focus and debate, demanding its repeal? The extreme left, the Vietnames and Pisniks. In line with the anti ideological methods of all other groups. The Vietnames, whose sympathies are on the side of Russia, China and North Vietnam, are screaming against the draft in the name of their individual rights. Individual rights? Believe it or not, they are proclaiming their right to choose which war they'll fight in while sympathizing with countries where the individual does not even have the right to choose and utter a thought of his own. What is still worse is the fact that they are the only group that even mentions individual rights if newspaper reports are to be trusted. But of all this anti ideological mess, I would pick one small incident as morally the worst. I quote from the New York Times of February 6, 1967, quote. Leaders of 15 student organizations representing both political extremes as well as the center, call today for the abolition of the draft and the encouragement of voluntary service in humanitarian pursuits. Among those who signed the resolution were leading members of the left wing Students for a Democratic Society, the right wing Young Americans for Freedom and the moderate Youth and College division of the national association for the Advancement of Colored People. Although no unanimity on concrete recommendations was arrived at, Mr. Chickering, the sponsor of the conference, said he believed that most of the student leaders favored his proposal for the creation of a system of voluntary national service. Under this proposal, students at campuses throughout the country will be asked to fill out cards expressing their willingness to serve in humanitarian work. Close quote. These are not men who are Being whipped. These are men who take the lash obediently and whip themselves politically. That proposal is much worse than a draft. The draft at least offers the excuse that one is serving one's own country in time of danger. And its political implications are diluted by a long historical tradition associated with patriotism. But if young men accept the belief that it is their duty to spend their irreplaceable formative years on growing rice and carrying bedpans, they're done for psychologically. And so is this country. The same news story carried some shocking statistics on the attitude of college students at large. It quoted a poll conducted by the national students association at 23 campuses throughout the country. If that poll is to be trusted, quote, approximately 75% said they preferred the establishment of some means to allow work in the Peace Corps, the Teacher Corps, or volunteers in service to America as an alternative to military service. About 90%, however, said they believed that the government has a right to conscript its citizens, and 68% thought such conscription was necessary in periods other than those of a declared national emergency. Close quote. This is an example on a grand scale of what I call the sanction of the victim. It is also an example of the fact that men cannot be enslaved politically until they have been disarmed ideologically. When they are so disarmed, it is the victims who take the lead in the process of their own destruction. Such is the swamp of contradictions swallowing the 22 most immediately prominent issues of today. Vietnam and the draft. The same is true of all the other issues and pseudo issues now clogging all the avenues of public communication. And adding insult to injury, the anti ideologists who are responsible for it are complaining about the public's lethargy. Lethargy is only a precarious psychological cover for confusion, disgust and despair. The country at large is bitterly dissatisfied with the status quo, disillusioned with the stale slogans of welfare statism and desperately seeking an alternative that is an intelligible program. And course, the intensity of that need may be gauged by the fact that that a single good speech raised a man who had never held public office to the governorship of California. The status of both parties who are now busy smearing Governor Reagan, are anxious not to see and not to let others discover the real lesson and meaning of his election. That the country is starved for a voice of consistency, clarity and moral self confidence. Confidence which were the outstanding qualities of his famous speech and which cannot be achieved or projected by consensus seeking anti ideologies. As of this date Governor Reagan seems to be a promising public figure. I do not know him and cannot speak for the future. It is difficult to avoid a certain degree of skepticism. We have been disappointed too often. But whether he lives up to the promise or not, the people's need, quest for and response to clear cut ideas remain a fact and will become a tragic fact if the intellectual leaders of this country continue to ignore it. Since the elections of 1966, some commentators have been talking about the country's swing to the right. There was no swing to the right, except perhaps in California. There was only a swing against the left. If by right we mean capitalism, and by left statism, without a firm, consistent ideological program and leadership, the people's desperate protest will be dissipated in the blind Alice of the same statism that they are opposing. It is futile to fight against if one does not know what one is fighting for. A merely negative trend or movement cannot win and historically has never won. It leads nowhere. But the task of formulating ideas and goals is not the province of politicians and is not accomplished at election time. These are merely its products and consequences. The task belongs to the intellectuals. The need is more urgent than ever. The consensus doctrine has achieved the exact opposite of its alleged goal. Instead of creating unity or agreement, it has disintegrated and atomized the country to such an extent that no communication, let alone agreement, is possible. It is not unity but intellectual coherence that a country needs. That country coherence can be achieved only by fundamental principles, not by compromises among groups of men, by the primacy of ideas, not of gangs. In conclusion, let me address those who have not given up the realm of ideas and are not afraid of the task of fighting today's intellectual vacuum. Let me quote from my recently published book, Capitalism the Unknown Ideal. Quote. Collectivism has lost the two crucial weapons that raised it to moral power and made all of its victories possible. Intellectuality and idealism, or reason and morality. It had to lose them precisely at the height of its success, since its claim to both was a fraud. The full, actual reality of such socialist communist fascist states has demonstrated the brute irrationality of collectivist systems and the inhumanity of altruism as a moral code. Yet reason and morality are the only weapons that determine the course of history. The collectivists dropped them because they had no right to carry them. Pick them up. You have. Close quote. Thank you.

Let me say, for the benefit of those who may be new to this forum and are not acquainted with the question period and its mechanics, I will take each section Swinging around the hall. So if you have a question over there, you wait for me hopefully. But in view of the large audience, I'm going to limit myself to a question, a section moving around. And then if we have time, I'll return questions here. Yes.

What place do you feel volunteerism plays in this society such as this peace world?

What function do you purpose do you believe that volunteerism plays in our society?

Well, it's regrettable, first of all. That you assign such a respectable work as voluntarism exclusively to charity work. Would have been nothing wrong with charity work if it were private and voluntary in the real sense of the word. And not public, semi official and forced. Or in the case of the projects I discussed, fully forced by improper blackmail. This is just only in regard to the term voluntarism. Now, if you mean the activities which are referred to by that name. Such as the Peace Corps and others.

I do not know very much in detail about the lesser ones.

I disapprove in principle of all. But I can tell you a few things about the Peace Corps. Not only is it completely futile and accomplishes absolutely nothing. As far as creating any good image of America, Quite the contrary. But what I'm more interested in is the psychology of those who volunteer for the Peace Corps. I don't know whether you are aware that among the officials of the Peace Corps. There is an expression in regard to the psychology of their Peace Corps volunteers when they return to this country. And they call it something like the shock of reentry. The trouble of reentry.

Something like that.

Comparing it to the return of men, outer space.

Of course.

Why? Because those selfless little altruists who claim that they go there. Just because they feel sorry for poor.

Undeveloped people and want to help them.

In exchange for doing really manual labor. Or lording it over helpless savages. Where they, the Peace Corps man, then become the Great White Father. In exchange for that, they come here and expect big jobs. Either in government or in private industry.

That's selflessness for you.

In exchange for that kind of job. I guess I'm understood.

And answer the Life article.

Would you care to comment on and answer the Life article? Which article do you refer to?

I think Judge Yuri has answered you.

Which article do you refer to?

The article that appear that was.

Wait a minute, please.

The article that appeared that was supposedly supposed to be about Ms. Rand.

This gentleman says that about two weeks ago. There appeared an article, as he says, supposedly about you. Would you care to comment?

Only to underscore.

It is supposedly about Me? I have not read it. What is more, Life magazine approached me asking me for an interview before that article was written. I refused. They then approached Nathaniel Brandon asking him for an interview. He refused. In both cases, we asked for approval and accuracy of any ideas or quotations they ascribed to us, which a reputable magazine offers as a matter of course for the interviewees protection and its own.

The magazines, and which they refused us.

If that article is what I have heard it is, you can see how.

Right we were in refusing it. And I don't think you should ask me about it.

I think you should ask Life.

Wait a minute, my friend. All quiet, please. Recommend, what actions do you recommend? When one is forced by this government into military or into taking some work that one does not believe in and one is opposed to it, what action do you recommend?

Morally? Nobody can advise a man on a choice of that kind.

That should be up to him.

Legally, I'm not allowed to answer you. It is legally forbidden to advocate opposition to the draft or disobedience to the draft. Therefore, I cannot answer.

Question up here. Yes.

Your use of terms is, to say the least, incredible. But since all of us are incredibly enlightened, we use the term the nature of reality. If there is a nature of reality, what is it and where can I find it?

This gentleman asked you.

This.

This gentleman asked you to define what you mean by the term nature of reality. And if there is such, where can he find it?

Well, if you don't know, how do you expect me to understand your question? And who is asking it? If your question. Question means something specific, if it is what you said, that is the nature of reality. If you ask me the philosophical question about the nature of reality, modern philosophical. And I answer you it is raining outside. I would have refused to recognize the nature of the question you asked me. If I am asking you correctly, that is, take logical cognizance and understanding of your question, then that constitutes recognition of the nature of reality, the nature of facts, the nature of that which exists. Now that of course, is a very wide subject, not quite appropriate to tonight's lecture. But I can tell you, if you're interested, where you will find the answer. In our magazine, the Objectivist, Specifically in my articles on introduction to Objectivist epistemology. It's a long series of articles. It might give you some idea what one means by the nature of reality, which of course, today's colleges would not give you.

Question up here, question down here. This gentleman. When do you believe that a human organism becomes an individual? Is it at conception? Is it at birth or is it at some other time at birth?

And let me answer the unstated context.

Of your question because it's rather un obvious.

To begin with, the fact of birth is an absolute fact that is up to that moment the child is not.

An independent living organism.

It's part of the body of its mother at birth. A child is an individual and has all the rights inherent in the nature of a human individual. Up until the moment of birth, that child is physically the property of the mother. It is not alive yet. Now the question may be debated that after all that child is said to be conscious before birth, which is debatable, I don't know. But here is what is not debatable. And it's a question for science to determined that a human embryo does not even begin to be properly. An embryo doesn't have the beginning of a nervous system until the third month of pregnancy, at which point abortion becomes dangerous to the mother. You see, nature apparently is much more consistent and in that sense benevolent than some human viewpoints and certain ideologists. At the time when the embryo begins to be perhaps potentially conscious after three months of pregnancy, at that very time it becomes dangerous for the mother's life to perform an abortion. Up to that time. There is certainly no moral, rational or semi humane proposition that could be brought by anyone except a medieval mystic of the worst kind in favor of forbidding abortion. It is a crime not only against all women but against the hundreds of thousands of victims that die every year. Abortion, as you know, is not a very dangerous medical operation but because it is forbidden by law, women have to go to quacks and charlatans and have abortions performed under improper unsanitary conditions and hundreds of thousands die a year. And this is what social hypocrisy condones and permits. A piece of tissue and embryo cannot have rights. And it is typical that a certain ideology which defies and denies the rights of adult individual and of human beings is concerned about the rights of an unborn piece of matter.

Further question.

Yes, Mr. Rand? I believe the rap bill expires at the end of June. I'm not sure about the exact date and I was interested in trying to do something about it. I was just going to ask you to give an idea of my roommate tonight and I was wondering what we thought about it. Didn't like we couldn't do and we were thinking of writing a pamphlet explaining, you know, the moral. The moral situation and then setting an alternative, trying to show in great Detail why a voluntary system wouldn't work, and then sending it out to all the congressmen, all the senators, President Johnson, state legislators, governors, and so on. And this is all a man can think of.

This gentleman says that he and his roommate. Quietly, quietly. This gentleman says that he and his roommate are concerned as to what to do relative to the expiration of the draft, which is scheduled for sometime in June. That they have thought about the preparation of a pamphlet urging the voluntary system and have thought that they would cause this pamphlet to go to all the congressmen. He wonders whether or not this idea is sufficient or whether perhaps you would contribute to further ideas that might help him and his roommate.

I would say any idea of addressing your Congress, writing to them as convincingly, as clearly and as well as you can. Any idea of that sort is valuable. I cannot specifically advise you about the type of pamphlet you would write because I cannot endorse work which I haven't seen. But as an idea, it is a good idea. And also gathering signatures on petitions if it is a brief, clearly stated petition expressing your view of the draft and.

Why you want it repealed.

But above all, no matter how brief or how long your presentation, I would suggest that you do not omit the words that the draft is a violation of individual rights, because such protests, as I have read very carefully, avoid mentioning that. Don't say individual freedom. Instead, don't. Don't say individual dignity. All that is true, but in today's context, it's an evasion. Say the word individual rights of which they're afraid.

And.

I'm glad that you raised this question because I would advise everyone concerned the draft is expiring in June, and therefore now is the time if you ever care to write to your congressman and if you do understand how unjust and terrible the draft law is, then.

Write to your congressman.

Now, from every sign that we can observe, they are reading their mail and they are very much paying attention to it because it is the only way in which they can have some idea what the country is really thinking. The press cannot be trusted today. Neither we, the citizens, can't get much information from it, and neither can they, the congressman. All the preoccupation with public polls, which is a very expensive procedure, is precisely an attempt to take the place of reliable newspaper reporting. They're trying to find out what people think of certain issues. And therefore congressmen today would be very appreciative if you do express your views. And the only thing I would suggest, do so politely. Abusive emotional letters, arbitrary insults. One way or the other accomplish nothing. State one reason better than 10 insulting adjectives. State why you think the draft should be.

Repealed or for that matter, upheld.

Such as your ideas. But write to the congressman that today is very important.

Further question. Yes?

Do you think that the government has any proper role in public health?

Do you think that the government has any proper role in matters of public health, such as air and water pollution?

No, I don't.

I don't think it requires a long answer. I don't think the government has a proper role in anything except the basic functions of protecting individual rights. That means army and navy, the military forces, the police force and the law courts. Issues of pollution, et cetera, should and can be settled by agreement among individuals, among free men. And if anyone is literally and demonstrably hurt by pollution, he can then appeal to the courts and prove that he has been hurt. But no special laws and certainly no government controls are required for it.

Another question here. Yes, come on, come on. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You heard what I said when I started, didn't you? Well, you sit down. Come on. When will a formal treatise on your philosophy be published?

A full presentation by me, not for some years yet, but what I have done as part of the job is a series of eight essays entitled Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. This ran in the objectivist from July 66 to February of this year and the Objectivist will publish it as a booklet paperback book shortly. That is one of the major series of Objectivism, the Theory of Concepts. And it is part of the future complete book on objectives philosophy, which I hope I will write someday. But I have too many things to do before then. I still am a fiction writer and I'm working on that too, but.

Thank you.

But that particular treatise, Introduction to Objectives Epistemology, would do a great deal to help you is the foundation of objectives philosophy. It's actually the foundation under all the rest of our theory.

Another question. Yes? Will there be a copy of that for people with an IQ of 110 rather than 150? Will there be a copy of that for people of a hundred and IQ of 110? Or will it be limited to people with an IQ of 150?

I would prefer to see the people with an IQ of 110 rise up.

To those of 150. It can be done.

There's a question here. Question up there.

Come on.

Weighing back. Way in back. This gentleman says that he. This gentleman says that he's quite sure that you uphold the working for oneself and for one's family. But he asks you, what do you believe in the idea of working for the family of men?

Well, my main objection to that is more literary than anything else. On the philosophical part of it, I've spoken in written volumes. But as a writer, literally, I object to bad metaphors. And when they are taken seriously, it is very, very dangerous. The family of men is a metaphor. In certain contexts it might be appropriate. But to literally equate it with one's own family is to rub both terms of any meaning. You can do and want to work for your family because it is your family of your own choice. It contributes to your happiness, and it is within your power to support it. Mankind at large is not a family, has never in history behaved like one, except like the worst kind of families. You have no control, no power, no choice, and cannot have much interest in literally every member of the human race. Remember, it's close to 2 billion or more. It is not in your power to do anything for them. All that you can do with slogans of this kind is do things to them. You can enslave them by forcing, prevent them from living their own lives. You cannot serve 2 billion people. Compare it to what you do in your own family, where you do matter, where your work, your activity does count and is in your power, simply means that you're not interested neither in your own family nor in mankind. The only thing one could contribute to the good of mankind is leave it alone, leave it free.

Come on. I'm sorry. Wait a minute, my friend. I'm having difficulty in hearing you. May I? Wait a minute. Wait a minute, please. This is a concert hall. The acoustics here are very good. And when you whisper amongst yourselves, it comes on here. So please be quiet. Yes. I want to know why you think.

It'S your objection for society.

If I get your question, you sit, you listen and see if I have it. Why do you think it necessary for you to work for the reform of society?

The questioner even said, why do I think it's my obligation?

That's right.

I don't think it's my obligation at all. It's my choice. Now we ask, then why is it my choice? Because if I want a society in which my rights are respected, in which I am free to pursue my happiness, I cannot push onto others the job of establishing such a society. I cannot sit and wait until somebody else does it. If I have the ability to contribute to the establishment of such a society, then I have to do it. And the same is true of Every man who is interested in the question of the kind of society he lives in. I think it is certainly to my selfish, rational self interest to live in a free society and not in a dictatorship. Therefore, I'm doing it primarily for myself, secondarily, for those I value. And beyond that, if I have the right ideas, then it will also be for the good of mankind as a consequence, which is always the consequence of any rational achievement. I'm not doing it for that purpose.

Gentlemen.

Weighing back, Ms.

Brand, could you please give us some idea of what, in your opinion, should be the nature of a university? Relationship between administration, faculty and students.

What should be the relationship in a university between the faculty, the administration, and students?

First of all, there should be an agreement between the faculty and the administration, which does not exist today, that the teaching in the university will be intelligible, That a fundamental intelligible epistemology be established on which all faculty members would agree so that they do not confuse the students epistemologically, by which I mean the rules of logic, the rules of presentation, the rules of proof, what is taken as evidence, what is taken as explanation. So that they do not make students memorize and recite things which the students cannot understand. So that they make understanding possible and make it a rule of colleges and of all those coming to learn or teaching, that this is a place for learning to understand, not merely to memorize and recite. That's the preamble to it. Anything that one can do in regard to universities. But assuming a rational base of that kind, the students should come to the university for one purpose only, and that is to study. Now, it would be certainly fine if the students have a large number of elective courses, particularly as they get to the graduate stage. The more choice of subjects they are given, the better. I certainly do not believe that the students can or should have any voice in the administration of a university or in the choice of a curriculum, because it's a contradiction in term. A young man just coming to a college is not qualified to know how a subject which he is going to learn, how it should be taught, or by whom, nor is he qualified to select representatives who will so decide for him. Students cannot be given the responsibility and the power of running a university. Now, as to the balance of power between administration and faculty, that varies and properly should vary from university to university. There is no general rule one can establish, except one. Nothing should be forced by law on anybody. Just as a student is free to leave a university, if he doesn't like it, he can go to another, the same should apply to administrators and faculty members. The general principle is only that the university has to be an institution of learning, of scholarship, and most certainly not a political center. It should not be a political voice. This is a bad European idea. Or part of certain European countries who are not distinguished by freedom in their history. The university should be devoted to science, scholarship, learning.

Now, you don't want me to attempt.

Which I wouldn't anyway, to go into.

Every detail of what kind of administration.

A college should have answering you only in principle. It should have the responsibility of each group involved commensurate with the knowledge and the function. And that no group should demand more than in fact, in fact, in reality, it has earned, deserves or is capable of achieving. Nine yellows. That's all right.

May I have your other glass?

Thank you very much.

There we are.

Thank you.

Further question up here. Yes, Miss. Gentleman. Now. All quiet please. Our principle is a very simple one Here we require that the audience recognize that the speaker is the guest of the forum. And to the speaker there must be extended a courtesy. This courtesy does not require agreement with the speaker. And hopefully that will be the case many, many times. Now we have no censorship here. Now wait a minute. We have no censorship here. And every question that is put is repeated by me. And this gentleman has addressed a question which Ms. Rand declines to answer. I shall put it and then I'll take the next question. He asked her as to whether she would have approved her being aborted when she was a fetus of less than three months. Next question please. Yes. Do you see any analogy between the Greek and Roman societies insofar as the self suicidal tendencies that you detect in our society is concerned?

Well, yes. More the Roman society. The parallels between the collapse of Western civilization and the collapse of Rome are very numerous and very great. The most obvious one is the fact that Rome grew great in its period of freedom, that is as a republic. And the collapse started with the change into an empire and the growth of government controls, including even a welfare state known by the slogan of bread and circuses. It is the growth of taxation and of government control that destroyed the economy of Rome and caused its collapse and which made it possible for the barbarians to take over. You see an exact parallel happening today.

We don't have to give up and.

Give in to the barbarians yet, but they're certainly waiting very anxiously.

Now this gentleman. Why do stuff.

Why do so many Americans have a paranoia fear of communism?

Why do so many Americans have a paranoiac fear of communism?

To begin with, I don't know that so many do. Second, I wouldn't call it a paranoiac fear. For instance, if you know that the country is a totalitarian dictatorship which grants you no rights whatever in which your life, works, future, everything is in the mercy of the government which engages in wholesale slaughter of millions for political reasons without a trial. If one then is afraid of that sort of influence coming to this country, I wouldn't call it paranoiac fear. I would call it rational fear. However, I don't think that opposition to something does not necessarily imply fear. There is another mistake in your question, which is a question asked in the newspapers very often. Why do you suppose that if one opposes something which is evil, does that necessarily mean one is afraid of that evil? Well, afraid in the sense that one disapproves, yes, colloquially you could say that, but not afraid in the sense of cowardice. If I oppose smallpox, for instance, would you say I'm afraid of it? Well, yes and no. I don't want to have it. But it isn't cowardice. And the same thing applies to those who oppose communism. It isn't fear of communism as such or of its power. It is moral indignation and opposition to the nature of communism and its evil. However, I'll grant you this, there are not many very intelligent anti communists. Too many of today's anti communists are non intellectual and they substitute slogans for serious discussion. That may give you some impression as if they're merely afraid. But even there, as far as I know or observe, it isn't true. They're merely inarticulate and not very intellectual and therefore not very effective. But it isn't fear. It is indignation, sometimes helpless indignation against an enormous evil. Solution.

Do you have any ideas relative to the solution of the crime problem?

Do you mean criminal crime, police crime? No, I can't say that I have any particular solution to offer to that problem. I'm too much interested in crimes of a different kind and on a larger scale, intellectual and philosophical crimes which in certain sense are also behind the individual police department crimes, that is, crimes which belong to the jurisdiction of the police department, or crimes in the literal sense of the word. They too can be traced to the philosophy of a culture. But they are predominantly the choice of an individual. And there I am not a specialist on those crimes at all. Further question except for television series.

Now come on. Wait a minute. This anxious fellow before. Come on.

The second part is, this is the case. How are these others who are living poverty, ignorance and diseases that Sometimes make controlly effective human beings want to raise.

If this gentleman understands you correctly, you seem to oppose the idea of young people being concerned with the welfare of others. And if this is so, then how are those peoples that are suffering from disease and parasitism and an inability to raise themselves, how are they ever going to raise themselves up?

First, the exact formulation of the first.

Part of your question.

I said young men should not be forced into altruistic service. And you say you paraphrasing the young men should not be concerned with the.

With others.

If you want to take it on a broader formulation, the way you formulate it, I would say yes. I do not believe that young men should be concerned with others. Primarily, I begin that I believe that every man should be concerned with himself and with his own development into the kind of human being that might be fit to live in a society with others. Specifically, in the context we're discussing here, we're talking about the man's formative lives, years of his life, the college years. He is not yet properly developed. He is not in a position to undertake to help others. Taking you now at the best possibility and taking this motive as sincere, a young man should first become the kind of man who can help others, if that is what he wants to begin with. On the wider question, should that be the goal of his life?

No.

Should that be his moral duty? No. If and when he can afford the time, the concern non sacrificially, meaning not sacrificing any more important interests of his own, then it is not wrong for him to be interested in others?

No.

But by that time what he should do is hire social workers for the purpose and contribute the money so that what should the poor people do who are undeveloped, as you say. Incidentally, as you probably know, I do not believe that they are social victims. I do not believe that environment conditions men because if it did, mankind would never have survived. The worst type of environment here is luxury compared to what the rest of the world lives in. And therefore, if men cannot rise out of poverty in this country, they couldn't survive in the rest of this globe at all. Because the conditions there are infinitely worse. Materially, spiritually, every other way. Therefore, I do not believe that the poor in this country are victims of UP society. But this does not mean that they are all necessarily and deliberately evil. They may be victims of misfortune, they may be the so called deserving poor. Then what should be done about them? Voluntary charity by those who can afford it.

Afford it?

Non sacrificially and there certainly is enough money for that in this country, given very generously and too generously. And then such charity organization can find and hire professional social workers. It is not the job of a young power luster or a young sacrificial altruist to be concerned with helping others when he himself is not yet a formed individual.