Ayn Rand
In order to further understanding of this excerpt by Ayn Rand, I would like to present a little bit of background information before I begin my commentary. Miss Rand was born in Russia in 1908, the daughter of a prosperous pharmacist. Growing up, she loved films and hoped to become a writer, possibly for the screen. This dream was threatened with the takeover of the Communist Party in 1918—as was her father’s private business. They moved around the country, trying to outdistance the spread of nationalization of private concerns, but it was no use. She entered the university, but was not too careful about her criticisms of the new government until she learned that her entire family was in danger. Her relatives in Chicago, Illinois helped her obtain a visa to visit the US, where she fell in love with an American man, married, and escaped Russia for good. She tried for many years to get her family out, until all communication was shut off. She made it one of her goals in life to promote an individualist philosophy which she coined ‘Objectivism’ and to warn people of the dangers of socialist theories.Her first novel, We the Living, is set in Russia at the time of the Communist Party takeover. The heroine, Kira, is in all ways Rand herself; the book is as close to an autobiography as she ever wrote. Her next major work, Anthem, is a novelette about the ultimate collective society, one that has banished the word and meaning of “I”. The Fountainhead, probably her most famous work, starred “Howard Roark, Architect” and revolved around the premise that “man’s ego is the fountainhead of all his achievement”. Roark overcame incredible obstacles to pursue his life work and was ultimately successful. Atlas Shrugged, her most important novel, poses the questions “Who moves the world? What if they stopped moving?” This particular excerpt, quoted in Pojman’s text, is taken from a radio broadcast speech made by John Galt, the book’s central (albeit mysterious) character and hero.
Rand’s theory of Objectivism is well summarized in this excerpt. Her first basic premise is that “existence exists”—i.e., reality is fixed, non-transcendent, and real. You can walk outside, smell a flower, breathe the air, feel the dirt—these things exist independent of man’s mind. This natural world (reported to man by his senses) is governed by natural laws, such as gravity, which are unalterable. Man exists in this natural world, just as animals do, but with one important difference: man has a mind, a “volitional consciousness”. Man is not born with an instinct for survival; instead, he must use his reason to figure out a way to survive. Thus, man must apply rational thought to the act of survival: man must choose to be rational in order to live. There is a conscious decision made, to live or not to live, and reason is man’s method of making this decision.
How does it follow, then, that rationality applies to morality? If a moral code is a system of values that a man adopts to guide his actions and thoughts, then a moral code should ‘teach’ him how to survive, to make goals and fulfill them, to live life and enjoy it. Since he creates this same moral code by which he lives, he has applied rational thought to the question “How do I live?” and has reached a logical conclusion. The fixation of a man’s moral code could take years to complete, and should be altered when needed—but only in the direction of good, which to man is his life. Therefore, a man should create a moral code for himself which helps him to lead a satisfied life. The key word here is “create”, which is an active verb. Man has created his guidelines to live by, and has thus applied rationality to morality.
Ayn Rand states that the achievement of happiness is man’s highest moral purpose. You may ask, what if my happiness lies in doing nothing and allowing others to wait on me hand and foot? Tell me, if you were raised knowing that the means of making a living lay in your hands and your hands alone, that to be good and moral was to be self-sufficient, and that the only proper form of interaction with other people is on an even-trade basis—with this knowledge, how could you desire to be entirely dependent on others? By making others serve me, I am merely placing myself at their mercy, am I not? By doing nothing, pursuing only a career of sloth and laziness, am I not mooching off the labor of others? What if they stopped working (this, of course, being the founding principle behind Atlas Shrugged)?
Note here, also, that Rand does not say ‘pleasure’; she says ‘happiness’ and defines it as “that state of unconsciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values.” She is not, therefore, speaking of certain pleasures of the flesh (for example, the use of harmful drugs) that provide a momentary high but wreck the life of the user. The pure pleasure-seeker, as in Feinberg’s example in opposition to the hedonist argument for psychological egoism, has absolutely no interest in anything but physical pleasure. Rand would say that this person is not happy, because happiness is found only in the fulfillment of values. Her definition of acting in self-interest is acting on those desires that come from the self and promote the well-being of the individual as a whole. Thus, to pursue “rational self-interest” is the highest good, the ultimate morality.
One of the major themes of Atlas Shrugged and of her life is the non-acceptance of the unearned. What does this mean? Simply that a self-sufficient person, the good and moral person, works hard to pursue his goals, but does not rely on any other person, either for money or gifts or affirmation of his character. In other words, the truly ‘selfish’ person is not the covetous person, but the worker, the wage earner. He enters into employment under a contract with his employer: I will work hard for you, and you will pay me what I am worth, no more or less. He enters a marriage or a love relationship the same way: I will love, value, and respect you, and you will do me the same honor. He enters a similar relationship with his government: I will produce and work, defend this land if needed; you will protect my freedoms and my life, if necessary. His moral code is the foundation of his entire life, and the rational decisions he makes are the moral decisions he makes.
One of the main objections to this philosophy is that it is geared toward the strong. Where does this leave the weak, the handicapped, the poor? The best answer is that we are all given one thing and one thing only by nature, and that is life. No matter how many apparent advantages or disadvantages you were born with, the same task faces you as me: we must live. Some of the word’s most successful people began as the poorest, the lowest-class, the most discriminated-against minority—but they refused to take NO for an answer. Look at Abraham Lincoln, George Washington Carver, and Colin Powell. On the other hand, some of the world’s sleaziest, most worthless, laziest people began life as the richest, the prep-schooled, the highest-born. Look at JFK, Jr. My point is, each person has a choice to make, a moral code to adopt—and the rest of their life to deal with the consequences of their actions and their decisions.
Another major part of this philosophy is that, since it is founded on reason and logic, it takes nothing on faith. In its ultimate form, it leads to atheism, because to accept the existence of God is to accept that which is unseen, immeasurable, and (to Rand) the irrational. In order to accept Christian doctrine, one must believe in miracles, in occurrences that are not physically possible and which are therefore irrational. In this same vein, she criticizes all “mystics”, those who accept that part of reality is not available to the eye or the instrument but can only be taken on blind faith.
I know that this has gone far beyond the extent of the few pages quoted in Pojman, and maybe cannot be counted as an actual commentary. However, I believe that an entire philosophy cannot be summed up in a few pages, especially when those pages were not intended to be a summary! The novel Atlas Shrugged was the culmination of Ayn Rand’s philosophical novel writing; from there, she started writing non-fiction books that described all aspects of Objectivism. I don’t think I have stated my opinions of this philosophy anywhere in this essay, yet, but if it was not apparent, I have adopted Objectivism as my personal philosophy. I have some problems with it so far, in implementing it in my life, but I am still young and learning about myself—I am still working on my own personal consistencies. The reason I agree with Objectivism is that it is grounded on reason: to me, it makes sense. It is a rational, logical philosophy, based on individualism, which I believe in firmly.
September 2001