There is no way to stop or change that process except at
the root: by a change of basic principles.
The evidence of that process is mounting in every country on earth. And, observing it, the unthinking begin to whisper about some mysterious occult power called a “historical necessity” which, in some unspecified way, by some unknowable means, has preordained mankind to collapse into the abyss of communism. But there are no fatalistic “historical necessities”: the “mysterious” power moving the events of the world is the awesome power of men’s principles—which is mysterious only to the “practical” modern savages who were taught to discard it as “impotent.”
But—it might be argued—since the advocates of a mixed economy are also advocating freedom, at least in part, why does the irrational part of their mixture have to win? This leads us to the fact that—
2. In any collaboration between two men (or groups) who hold different basic principles, it is the more evil or irrational one who wins.
The rational (principle, premise, idea, policy, or action) is that which is consonant with the facts of reality; the irrational is that which contradicts the facts and attempts to get away with it. A collaboration is a joint undertaking, a common course of action. The rational (the good) has nothing to gain from the irrational (the evil), except a share of its failures and crimes; the irrational has everything to gain from the rational: a share of its achievements and values. An industrialist does not need the help of a burglar in order to succeed; a burglar needs the industrialist’s achievement in order to exist at all. What collaboration is possible between them and to what end?
If an individual holds mixed premises, his vices undercut, hamper, defeat, and ultimately destroy his virtues. What is the moral status of an honest man who steals once in a while? In the same way, if a group of men pursues mixed goals, its bad principles drive out the good. What is the political status of a free country whose government violates the citizens’ rights once in a while?
Consider the case of a business partnership: if one partner is honest and the other is a swindler, the latter contributes nothing to the success of the business; but the reputation of the former disarms the victims and provides the swindler with a wide-scale opportunity which he could not have obtained on his own.
Now consider the collaboration of the semi-free countries with the communist dictatorships, in the United Nations. To identify that institution is to damn it, so that any criticism is
superfluous. It is an institution allegedly dedicated to peace, freedom, and human rights, which includes Soviet Russia— the most brutal aggressor, the bloodiest dictatorship, the largest-scale mass-murderer and mass-enslaver in all history— among its charter members. Nothing can be added to that fact and nothing can mitigate it. It is so grotesquely evil an affront to reason, morality, and civilization that no further discussion is necessary, except for a glance at the consequences.
Psychologically, the U.N. has contributed a great deal to the gray swamp of demoralization—of cynicism, bitterness, hopelessness, fear and nameless guilt—which is swallowing the Western world. But the communist world has gained a moral sanction, a stamp of civilized respectability from the Western world—it has gained the West’s assistance in deceiving its victims—it has gained the status and prestige of an equal partner, thus establishing the notion that the difference between human rights and mass slaughter is merely a difference of political opinion.
The declared goal of the communist countries is the conquest of the world. What they stand to gain from a collaboration with the (relatively) free countries is the latter’s material, financial, scientific, and intellectual resources; the free countries have nothing to gain from the communist countries. Therefore, the only form of common policy or compromise possible between two such parties is the policy of property owners who make piecemeal concessions to an armed thug in exchange for his promise not to rob them.
The U.N. has delivered a larger part of the globe’s surface and population into the power of Soviet Russia than Russia could ever hope to conquer by armed force. The treatment accorded to Katanga versus the treatment accorded to Hungary, is a sufficient example of U.N. policies. An institution allegedly formed for the purpose of using the united might of the world to stop an aggressor, has become the means of using the united might of the world to force the surrender of one helpless country after another into the aggressor’s power.
Who, but a concrete-bound epistemological savage, could have expected any other results from such an “experiment in collaboration”? What would you expect from a crime-fighting committee whose board of directors included the leading gangsters of the community?
Only a total evasion of basic principles could make this possible. And this illustrates the reason why—
3. When opposite basic principles are clearly and openly
defined, it works to the advantage of the rational side; when they are not clearly defined, but are hidden or evaded, it works to the advantage of the irrational side.
In order to win, the rational side of any controversy requires that its goals be understood; it has nothing to hide, since reality is its ally. The irrational side has to deceive, to confuse, to evade, to hide its goals. Fog, murk, and blindness are not the tools of reason; they are the only tools of irrationality.
No thought, knowledge, or consistency is required in order to destroy; unremitting thought, enormous knowledge, and a ruthless consistency are required in order to achieve or create. Every error, evasion, or contradiction helps the goal of destruction; only reason and logic can advance the goal of construction. The negative requires an absence (ignorance, impotence, irrationality); the positive requires a presence, an existent (knowledge, efficacy, thought).
The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.
“In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.” (Atlas Shrugged)
15. IS ATLAS SHRUGGING?
BY AYN RAND
As the title of this discussion indicates, its theme is: the relationship of the events presented in my novel Atlas Shrugged to the actual events of today’s world.
Or, to put the question in a form which has often been addressed to me: “Is Alias Shrugged a prophetic novel—or a historical one?”
The second part of the question seems to answer the first: if some people believe that Atlas Shrugged is a historical novel, this means that it was a successful prophecy.
The truth of the matter can best be expressed as follows: although the political aspects of Atlas Shrugged are not its central theme nor its main purpose, my attitude toward these aspects—during the years of writing the novel—was contained in a brief rule I had set for myself: “The purpose of this book is to prevent itself from becoming prophetic.”
The book was published in 1957. Since then, I have received many letters and heard many comments which amounted, in essence, to the following: “When I first read Atlas Shrugged, I thought that you were exaggerating, but then I realized suddenly—while reading the newspapers— that the things going on in the world today are exactly like the things in your book.”
And so they are. Only more so.
The present state of the world, the political events, proposals, and ideas of today are so grotesquely irrational that neither I nor any other novelist could ever put them into fiction: no one would believe them. A novelist could not get away with it; only a politician might imagine that he can.
The political aspects of Atlas Shrugged are not its theme, but one of the consequences of its theme. The theme is: the role of the mind in man’s existence and, as a corollary, the presentation of a new code of ethics—the morality of rational self-interest
Lecture given at The Ford Hall Forum, Boston, on April 19, 1964. Published in The Objectivest Newsletter, August 1964.
150
The story of Atlas Shrugged shows what happens to the world when the men of the mind—the originators and innovators in every line of rational endeavor—go on strike and vanish, in protest against an altruist-collectivist society.
There are two key passages in Atlas Shrugged that give a brief summary of its meaning. The first is a statement of John Gait:
There is only one kind of men who have never been on strike in human history. Every other kind and class have stopped, when they so wished, and have presented demands to the world, claiming to be indispensable— except the men who have carried the world on their shoulders, have kept it alive, have endured torture as sole payment, but have never walked out on the human race. Well, their turn has come. Let the world discover who they are, what they do and what happens when they refuse to function. This is the strike of the men of the mind, Miss Taggart. This is the mind on strike.