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Ayn Rand Interview (1959) Part 1 of 3
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9 minutes and 30 seconds
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Posted by:
phobe on Apr 22, 2008
Ayn Rand Interview with Mike Wallace 1959
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- This is Mike Wallace with another television portrait from our gallery
- of colorful people.
- Throughout the United States small pockets of intellectuals
- have become involved in a new and unusual philosophy,
- which would seem to strike at the very roots of our society.
- The fountainhead of this philosophy is a novelist Ayn Rand.
- Whose two major works The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged
- have been best sellers.
- We'll try to find out more about her revolutionary creed
- and about Miss Rand herself in just a moment.
- And now to our story
- Down through history various political and philosophical movements
- have sprung up but most of them have died.
- Some however like Democracy or Communism
- take hold and affect the entire world.
- Here in the United States perhaps the most challenging
- and unusual new philosophy has been forged by a novelist Ayn Rand.
- Miss Rand's point of view is still comparatively unknown in America,
- but if it ever did take hold it would revolutionize our lives.
- And I'm to begin with... I wonder if I can ask you to capsulize...
- I know this is difficult... Can I ask you to capsulize your philosophy?
- What is Randism?
- First of all, I do not call it Randism, and I don't like that name.
- I call it Objectivism. Meaning a philosophy based on objective reality.
- Now let me explain it as briefly as I can.
- First my philosophy is based on the concept that reality exists
- as an objective absolute. That man's mind reason
- is his means of percieving it.
- And that man needs a rational morality.
- I am primarily the creator of a new court of morality
- which has so far been believed impossible.
- Namely, a morality not based on face, not on faith,
- not on arbitrary whim, not on emotion, not on arbitrary edict,
- mystical or social, but on reason.
- A morality which can be proved by means of logic.
- Which can be demonstrated to be true and necessary.
- Now may I define what my morality is,
- because this is merely an introduction.
- My morality is based on man's life as a standard of value.
- And since man's mind is his basic means of survival,
- I hold that if man wants to live on earth, and to live as a human being.
- He has to hold reason as an absolute.
- By which I mean, that he has to hold reason as his only guide to action.
- And that he must live by the independent judgement of his own mind.
- That his highest moral purpose is the achievement of his own happiness.
- And that he must not force other people
- nor accept their right to force him.
- That each man must live as an end in himself
- and follow his own rational self-interest.
- May I interrupt now? You may.
- Because you put this philosophy to work in your novel Atlas Shrugged.
- You demonstrate it, in human terms, in your novel Atlas Shrugged.
- And let me start by quoting from a review of this novel Atlas Shrugged
- that appeared in News Week. It said that, "You are out to destroy
- almost every edifice in the contemporary American way of life.
- Our Judeo-Christian religion
- our modified government regulated capitalism
- our rule by the majority will."
- Other reviews have said that, "You scorn churches,
- and the concept of god."
- Are these accurate criticisms?
- Ah.. Yes... I agree with the fact, but not the estimate of this criticism.
- Namely, if I am challenging the base of all these institutions,
- I'm challenging the moral code of altruism.
- The precept that man's moral duty is to live for others.
- That man must sacrifice himself to others.
- Which is the present day morality.
- What do you mean sacrifice himself for others? Now were getting to the point.
- Since I'm challenging the base, I necessarily will challenge
- the institutions you name, which are a result of that morality.
- And now what is self-sacrifice? Yes...What is self-sacrifice?
- You say that you do not like the altruism by which we live.
- You like a certain kind of Ayn Randist selfishness.
- I will say that, "I don't like" is to weak a word.
- I consider it evil. And self-sacrifice is the precept
- that man needs to serve others, in order to justify his existence.
- That his moral duty is to serve others. That is what most people believe today.
- Yes...Were taught to feel concern for our fellow man.
- To feel responsible for his welfare.
- To feel that we are as religious people might put it, children under god,
- and responsible one for the other. Now why do you rebel?
- What's wrong with this philosophy?
- But that is in fact what makes man a sacrificial animal.
- That man must work for others, concern himself with others,
- or be responsible for them. That is the role of a sacrificial object.
- I say that man is entitled to his own happiness.
- And that he must achieve it himself.
- But that he cannot demand that others give up their lives to make him happy.
- And nor should he wish to sacrifice himself for the happiness of others.
- I hold that man should have self-esteem.
- And cannot man have self-esteem if he loves his fellow man?
- What's wrong with loving your fellow man?
- Christ, every important moral leader in man's history has taught us
- that we should love one another.
- Why then is this kind of love in your mind immoral?
- It is immoral if it is a love placed above oneself.
- It is more than immoral, it's impossible.
- Because when you asked to love everybody indiscriminately.
- That is to love people without any standard
- To love them regardless of whether they have any value or any virtue,
- you are asked to love nobody.
- But in a sense, in your book you talk about love as if it were a
- business deal of some kind.
- Isn't the essence of love, that it is above self-interest?
- Well, let me make it concrete for you.
- What would it mean to have a love above self-interest?
- It would mean for instance that a husband would tell his wife
- if he were moral according to the conventional morality,
- that I am marring you just for you own sake, I have no personal interest in it,
- but I'm so unselfish, that I am marrying you only for your own good.
- Would any woman like that?
- Should husbands and wives tally up at the end of the day
- and say, "well now wait a minute, I love her if she's done enough for me today,
- or she loves me if I have properly performed my functions?
- No, you misunderstood me. That is not how love should be treated.
- I agree with you that it should be treated like a business deal.
- But every business deal has to have its own terms and its own kind of currency.
- And in love the currency is virtue.
- You love people, not for what do for them, or what they do for you.
- You love them for their values, their virtues,
- which they have achieved in their own character.
- You don't love causes. You don't love everybody indiscriminately.
- You love only those who deserve it.
- And then if a man is weak, or a woman is weak, then she is beyond,
- he is beyond love?
- He certainly does not deserve it, he certainly is beyond.
- He can always correct it. Man has free will.
- If a man wants love he should correct his weaknesses,
- or his flaws, and he may deserve it.
- But he cannot expect the unearned, neither in love, nor in money,
- neither in method, nor spirit.
- You have lived in our world, and you realize... recognize...
- the fallibility of human beings, there are very few us then in this world,
- by your standards, who are worthy of love.
- Unfortunately.... yes... very few.
- But it is open to everybody, to make themselves worthy of it
- and that is all that my morality offers them.
- A way to make themselves worthy of love
- although that's not the primary motive.


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