Philosophy - Who needs it Part 2

I said that such problems would always exist so long as government controls existed, and that the only solution was a system of full, laissez-faire capitalism, under which no groups could acquire economic privileges or special pull, so that everyone would have to stand on his own. "That's impossible!" he snapped; his voice was peculiarly tense, abrupt, defensive, as if he were slamming a mental door on some barely glimpsed fact; the voice conveyed fear. I did not pursue the subject: I had grasped a psychological issue that was new to me.

2. A well-known lady novelist once wrote an essay on the nature of fiction. Adopting an extreme Naturalist position, she declared: "The distinctive mark of the novel is its concern with the actual world, the world of fact . . ." And by "fact," she meant the immediately available facts-"the empiric element in experience." "The novel does not permit occurrences outside the order of nature-miracles. . . . You remember how in The Brothers Karamazov The Brothers Karamazov when Father Zossima dies, his faction (most of the sympathetic characters in the book) expects a miracle: that his body will stay sweet and fresh because he died 'in the odor of sanct.i.ty.' But instead he begins to stink. The stink of Father Zossima is the natural, generic smell of the novel. By the same law, a novel cannot be laid in the future, since the future, until it happens, is outside the order of nature . . ." when Father Zossima dies, his faction (most of the sympathetic characters in the book) expects a miracle: that his body will stay sweet and fresh because he died 'in the odor of sanct.i.ty.' But instead he begins to stink. The stink of Father Zossima is the natural, generic smell of the novel. By the same law, a novel cannot be laid in the future, since the future, until it happens, is outside the order of nature . . ."

She declared that "the novel's characteristic tone is one of gossip and t.i.ttletattle. . . . Here is another criterion: if the breath of scandal has not touched it, the book is not a novel. . . . The scandals of a village or a province, the scandals of a nation or of the high seas feed on facts and breed speculation. But it is of the essence of a scandal that it be finite . . . It is impossible, except for theologians, to conceive of a world-wide scandal or a universe-wide scandal; the proof of this is the way people have settled down to living with nuclear fission, radiation poisoning, hydrogen bombs, satellites, and s.p.a.ce rockets." Why facts of this kind should be regarded as the province of theology, she did not explain. "Yet these 'scandals,' in the theological sense, of the large world and the universe have dwarfed the finite scandals of the village and the province . . ."

She then proceeded to explain what she regards as "the dilemma of the novelist": we forget or ignore the events of the modern world, "because their special quality is to stagger belief." But if we think of them, "our daily life becomes incredible to us. . . . The coexistence of the great world and us, when contemplated, appears impossible." From this, she drew a conclusion: since the novelist is motivated by his love of truth, "ordinary common truth recognizable to everyone," the novel is "of all forms the least adapted to encompa.s.s the modern world, whose leading characteristic is irreality. And that, so far as I can understand, is why the novel is dying."

3. The following story was told to me by an American businessman. In his youth, he took a job as efficiency-expert adviser to the manager of a factory in South America. The factory was using U.S. machines, but was getting only 45 percent of the machines' potential productivity. Observing the low wage scale, he concluded that the men were given no incentive to work-and suggested the introduction of pay by piecework. The elderly manager told him, with a skeptical smile, that this would be futile, but agreed to try it.

In the first three weeks of the new plan, productivity soared. In the fourth week, no one showed up for work: virtually the entire labor force vanished-and did not come back until a week later. Having earned a month's wages in three weeks, the workers saw no reason to work that extra week; they had no desire to earn more than they had been earning. No arguments could persuade them; the plan was discontinued.

4. A professor of philosophy once invited me to address his cla.s.s on ethics; they were studying the subject of "justice," and he asked me to present the Objectivist view of justice. The format he proposed was a fifteen-minute presentation, followed by a question period. I pointed out to him that it would be very difficult to present, in fifteen minutes, the basis of the Objectivist ethics and thus give the reasons for my definition of justice. "Oh, you don't have to give the reasons," he said, "just present your views." (I did not comply.) The circ.u.mstances and the people in these four examples are different; the type of mentality they display is the same. This mentality is self-made, but many different factors can contribute to its formation. These factors may be social, as in the case of the South American workers-or personal, as in the case of the lady novelist-or both, as in the case of the Midwestern businessman. As to the professor of philosophy, the modern trend of his profession is the factor responsible for all the rest.

These cases are examples of the anti-conceptual anti-conceptual mentality. mentality.

The main characteristic of this mentality is a special kind of pa.s.sivity: not pa.s.sivity as such and not across-the-board, but pa.s.sivity beyond a certain limit-i.e., pa.s.sivity in regard to the process of conceptualization and, therefore, in regard to fundamental principles. It is a mentality which decided, at a certain point of development, that it knows enough and does not care to look further. What does it accept as "enough"? The immediately given, directly perceivable concretes of its background-"the empiric element in experience."

To grasp and deal with such concretes, a human being needs a certain degree of conceptual development, a process which the brain of an animal cannot perform. But after the initial feat of learning to speak, a child can counterfeit this process, by memorization and imitation. The anti-conceptual mentality stops on this level of development-on the first levels of abstractions, which identify perceptual material consisting predominantly of physical objects-and does not choose to take the next, crucial, fully volitional step: the higher levels of abstraction from abstractions, which cannot be learned by imitation. (See my book Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.) Such a mind can grasp the scandals of a village or a province or (at secondhand) a nation; it cannot grasp the concepts of "world" or "universe"-or the fact that their events are not "scandals."

The anti-conceptual mentality takes most things as irreducible primaries and regards them as "self-evident." It treats concepts as if they were (memorized) percepts; it treats abstractions as if they were perceptual perceptual concretes. To such a mentality, everything is the given: the pa.s.sage of time, the four seasons, the inst.i.tution of marriage, the weather, the breeding of children, a flood, a fire, an earthquake, a revolution, a book are phenomena of the same order. The distinction between the metaphysical and the man-made is not merely unknown to this mentality, it is incommunicable. concretes. To such a mentality, everything is the given: the pa.s.sage of time, the four seasons, the inst.i.tution of marriage, the weather, the breeding of children, a flood, a fire, an earthquake, a revolution, a book are phenomena of the same order. The distinction between the metaphysical and the man-made is not merely unknown to this mentality, it is incommunicable.

The two cardinal questions, the prime movers of a human mind-"Why?" and "What for?"-are alien to an anti-conceptual mentality. If asked, they elicit nothing beyond the conventionally accepted answers. The answers are usually some equivalent of "Such is life" or "One is supposed to." Whose Whose life? Blank out. Supposed-by life? Blank out. Supposed-by whom whom? Blank out.

The absence of concern with the "Why?" eliminates the concept of causality and cuts off the past. The absence of concern with the "What for?" eliminates long-range purpose and cuts off the future. Thus only the present is fully real to an anti-conceptual mentality. Something of the past remains with it, in the form of stagnant bits of a random chronicle, like a kind of small talk of memory, without goal or meaning. But the future is a blank; the future cannot be grasped perceptually.

In this respect, paradoxically enough, the hidebound traditionalist and the modern college activist are two sides of the same psycho-epistemological coin.4 The first seeks to escape the terror of an unknowable future by seeking safety in the alleged wisdom of the past. ("What was good enough for my father, is good enough for me!") The second seeks to escape the terror of an unintelligible past by screaming his way into an indefinable future. ("If it's not good for my father, it's not good enough for me!") And, paradoxically enough, neither of them is able to live in the present-because man's life span is a continuum whose only integrator is his The first seeks to escape the terror of an unknowable future by seeking safety in the alleged wisdom of the past. ("What was good enough for my father, is good enough for me!") The second seeks to escape the terror of an unintelligible past by screaming his way into an indefinable future. ("If it's not good for my father, it's not good enough for me!") And, paradoxically enough, neither of them is able to live in the present-because man's life span is a continuum whose only integrator is his conceptual conceptual faculty. faculty.

In the brain of an anti-conceptual person, the process of integration is largely replaced by a process of a.s.sociation. What his subconscious stores and automatizes is not ideas, but an indiscriminate acc.u.mulation of sundry concretes, random facts, and unidentified feelings, piled into unlabeled mental file folders. This works, up to a certain point-i.e., so long as such a person deals with other persons whose folders are stuffed similarly, and thus no search through the entire filing system is ever required. Within such limits, the person can be active and willing to work hard-like the Midwestern businessman, who exercised a great deal of initiative and ingenuity, within the limits set by his particular city district-like the lady novelist, who wrote many books, within the terms set by her college teachers-like the professor of philosophy, who spent his time a.n.a.lyzing results, without bothering about their causes.

A person of this mentality may uphold some abstract principles or profess some intellectual convictions (without remembering where or how he picked them up). But if one asks him what he means by a given idea, he will not be able to answer. If one asks him the reasons reasons of his convictions, one will discover that his convictions are a thin, fragile film floating over a vacuum, like an oil slick in empty s.p.a.ce-and one will be shocked by the number of questions it had never occurred to him to ask. of his convictions, one will discover that his convictions are a thin, fragile film floating over a vacuum, like an oil slick in empty s.p.a.ce-and one will be shocked by the number of questions it had never occurred to him to ask.

This kind of psycho-epistemology works so long as no part of it is challenged. But all h.e.l.l breaks loose when it is-because what is threatened then is not a particular idea, but that mind's whole structure. The h.e.l.l ranges from fear to resentment to stubborn evasion to hostility to panic to malice to hatred.

The best ill.u.s.tration of an anti-conceptual mentality is a small incident in a novel published years ago, whose t.i.tle, unfortunately, I do not remember. A commonplace kind of blonde goes out on a date with a college boy; when she is asked later whether she had a good time, she answers: "No. He was awfully boring. He never said anything I'd ever heard before."

The concrete-bound, anti-conceptual mentality can cope only with men who are bound by the same concretes-by the same kind of "finite" world. To this mentality, it means a world in which men do not have to deal with abstract principles: principles are replaced by memorized rules of behavior, which are accepted uncritically as the given. What is "finite" in such a world is not its extension, but the degree of mental effort required of its inhabitants. When they say "finite," they mean "perceptual."

Within the limits of their rules (which are usually called "traditions"), the inhabitants of such worlds are free to function-i.e., to deal with concretes without worrying about consequences, to deal with results without bothering about causes, to deal with "facts" as discrete phenomena, unhampered by the "intangibles" of theory-and to feel safe. safe. Safe from what? Consciously, they would answer "Safe from outsiders." Actually, the answer is: safe from the necessity of dealing with fundamental principles (and, consequently, safe from full responsibility for one's own life). Safe from what? Consciously, they would answer "Safe from outsiders." Actually, the answer is: safe from the necessity of dealing with fundamental principles (and, consequently, safe from full responsibility for one's own life).

It is the fundamentals of philosophy (particularly, of ethics) that an anti-conceptual person dreads above all else. To understand and to apply them requires a long conceptual chain, which he has made his mind incapable of holding beyond the first, rudimentary links. If his professed beliefs-i.e., the rules and slogans of his group-are challenged, he feels his consciousness dissolving in fog. Hence, his fear of outsiders. The word "outsiders," to him, means the whole wide world beyond the confines of his village or town or gang-the world of all those people who do not live by his "rules." He does not know why he feels that outsiders are a deadly threat to him and why they fill him with helpless terror. The threat is not existential, but psycho-epistemological: to deal with them requires that he rise above his "rules" to the level of abstract principles. He would die rather than attempt it.

"Protection from outsiders" is the benefit he seeks in clinging to his group. What the group demands in return is obedience to its rules, which he is eager to obey: those rules are are his protection-from the dreaded realm of abstract thought. By whom are those rules established? In theory, by tradition. In fact, by those who happen to be the leaders of his group; the way it stands in his mind is: by those who know the mysteries he does not have to know. his protection-from the dreaded realm of abstract thought. By whom are those rules established? In theory, by tradition. In fact, by those who happen to be the leaders of his group; the way it stands in his mind is: by those who know the mysteries he does not have to know.

Thus, his survival depends on the subst.i.tution of men men for ideas-and on the subordination of the metaphysical to the man-made. The metaphysical is beyond his grasp-laws of nature cannot be grasped perceptually-but man-made rules are absolutes that protect him from the unknowable, psychologically and existentially. The group comes to his rescue if he gets into trouble-and he does not have to for ideas-and on the subordination of the metaphysical to the man-made. The metaphysical is beyond his grasp-laws of nature cannot be grasped perceptually-but man-made rules are absolutes that protect him from the unknowable, psychologically and existentially. The group comes to his rescue if he gets into trouble-and he does not have to earn earn their help, it is given to him automatically, it is not at the precarious mercy of his own virtues, flaws or errors, it is his by grace of the fact that he belongs to the group. their help, it is given to him automatically, it is not at the precarious mercy of his own virtues, flaws or errors, it is his by grace of the fact that he belongs to the group.

As an example of the principle that the rational is the moral, observe that the anti-conceptual is the profoundly anti-moral. The basic commandment of all such groups, which takes precedence over any other rules, is: loyalty to the group loyalty to the group-not to ideas, but to people; not to the group's beliefs, which are minimal and chiefly ritualistic, but to the group's members and leaders. Whether a given member is right or wrong, the others must protect him from outsiders; whether he is innocent or guilty, the others must stand by him against outsiders; whether he is competent or not, the others must employ him or trade with him in preference to outsiders. Thus a physical qualification-the accident of birth in a given village or tribe-takes precedence over morality and justice. (But the physical is only the most frequently apparent and superficial qualification, since such groups reject the nonconforming children of their own members. The actual qualification is psycho-epistemological: men bound by the same concretes.) Primitive tribes are an obvious example of the anti-conceptual mentality-perhaps, with some justification: savages, like children, are on the preconceptual level of development. Their later counterparts, however, demonstrate that this mentality is not the product of ignorance (nor is it caused by lack of intelligence): it is self-made, i.e., self-arrested. It has resisted the rise of civilization and has manifested itself in countless forms throughout history. Its symptom is always an attempt to circ.u.mvent reality by subst.i.tuting men for ideas, the man-made for the metaphysical, favors for rights, special pull for merit-i.e., an attempt to reduce man's life to a small back-yard (or rat hole) exempt from the absolutism of reason. (The driving motive of these attempts is deeper than power-l.u.s.t: the rulers of such groups seek protection from reality as anxiously as the followers.) Racism is an obvious manifestation of the anti-conceptual mentality. So is xenophobia-the fear or hatred of foreigners ("outsiders"). So is any caste system, which prescribes a man's status (i.e., a.s.signs him to a tribe) according to his birth; a caste system is perpetuated by a special kind of sn.o.bbishness (i.e., group loyalty) not merely among the aristocrats, but, perhaps more fiercely, among the commoners or even the serfs, who like to "know their place" and to guard it jealously against the outsiders from above or from below. So is guild socialism. So is any kind of ancestor wors.h.i.+p or of family "solidarity" (the family including uncles, aunts and third cousins). So is any criminal gang.

Tribalism (which is the best name to give to all the group manifestations of the anti-conceptual mentality) is a dominant element in Europe, as a reciprocally reinforcing cause and result of Europe's long history of caste systems, of national and local (provincial) chauvinism, of rule by brute force and endless, b.l.o.o.d.y wars. As an example, observe the Balkan nations, which are perennially bent upon exterminating one another over minuscule differences of tradition or language. Tribalism had no place in the United States-until recent decades. It could not take root here, its imported seedlings were withering away and turning to slag in the melting pot whose fire was fed by two inexhaustible sources of energy: individual rights and objective law; these two were the only protection man needed.

The remnants of European tribalism, imported by the more timid immigrants, took the innocuous form of "ethnic" neighborhoods in cities, each neighborhood offering its own customs, traditional festivals, old-country restaurants, and words in its native language on battered store-signs. Those signs were battered, because the men who clung to the tribal rule of giving trade priorities to fellow-tribesmen, remained in the backwaters of impoverished neighborhoods, while the torrent of productive energy that placed merit above tribe, swept past them, carrying away the best of their children.

There was no harm in such backwaters, so long as no one was forced to remain in them. The pressure of enlightenment by example was undercutting the group loyalty of the most stubbornly anti-conceptual mentalities, urging them to venture out into the great world where no man is an "outsider" (or all men are, as far as special privileges are concerned).

The disintegration of philosophy reversed this trend. Tribalism is a product of fear, and fear is the dominant emotion of any person, culture or society that rejects man's power of survival: reason. As philosophy slithered into the primitive swamp of irrationalism, men were driven-existentially and psychologically-into its primordial corollary: tribalism. Existentially, the rise of the welfare state broke up the country into pressure groups, each fighting for special privileges at the expense of the others-so that an individual unaffiliated with any group became fair game for tribal predators. Psychologically, Pragmatism lobotomized the country's intellectuals: John Dewey's theory of "Progressive" education (which has dominated the schools for close to half a century), established a method of crippling a child's conceptual faculty and replacing cognition with "social adjustment." It was and is a systematic attempt to manufacture tribal mentalities. (See my article "The Comprachicos" in The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution. The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution.) Observe that today's resurgence of tribalism is not a product of the lower cla.s.ses-of the poor, the helpless, the ignorant-but of the intellectuals, the college-educated "elitists" (which is a purely tribalistic term). Observe the proliferation of grotesque herds or gangs-hippies, yippies, beatniks, peaceniks, Women's Libs, Gay Libs, Jesus Freaks, Earth Children-which are not tribes, but s.h.i.+fting aggregates of people desperately seeking tribal "protection."

The common denominator of all such gangs is the belief in motion (ma.s.s demonstrations), not action-in chanting, not arguing-in demanding, not achieving-in feeling, not thinking-in denouncing "outsiders," not in pursuing values-in focusing only on the "now," the "today" without a "tomorrow"-in seeking to return to "nature," to "the earth," to the mud, to physical labor, i.e., to all the things which a perceptual perceptual mentality is able to handle. You don't see advocates of reason and science clogging a street in the belief that using their bodies to stop traffic, will solve any problem. mentality is able to handle. You don't see advocates of reason and science clogging a street in the belief that using their bodies to stop traffic, will solve any problem.

Most of those embryonic tribal gangs are leftist or collectivist. But as a demonstration of the fact that the cause of tribalism is deeper than politics, there are tribalists still further removed from reality, who claim to be rightists. They are champions of individualism, they claim, which they define as the right to form one's own gang and use physical force against others-and they intend to preserve capitalism, they claim, by replacing it with anarchism (establis.h.i.+ng "private" or "competing" governments, i.e., tribal rule). The common denominator of such individualists is the desire to escape from objectivity objectivity (objectivity requires a very long conceptual chain and very abstract principles), to act on whim, and to deal with men rather than with ideas-i.e., with the men of their own gang bound by the same concretes. (objectivity requires a very long conceptual chain and very abstract principles), to act on whim, and to deal with men rather than with ideas-i.e., with the men of their own gang bound by the same concretes.

These rightists' distance from reality may be gauged by the fact that they are unable to recognize the actual examples of their ideals in practice. One such example is the Mafia. The Mafia (or "family") is a "private government," with subjects who chose to join it voluntarily, with a rigid set of rules rigidly, efficiently and bloodily enforced, a "government" that undertakes to protect you from "outsiders" and to enforce your immediate interests-at the price of your selling your soul, i.e., of your total obedience to any "favor" it may demand. Another example of a "government" without territorial sovereignty is offered by the Palestinian guerrillas, who have no country of their own, but who engage in terroristic attacks and slaughter of "outsiders" anywhere on earth.

The activist manifestations of modern tribalism, of Left or "Right," are crude extremes. It is the subtler manifestations of the anti-conceptual mentality that are more tragic and harder to deal with. These are the "mixed economies" of the spirit-the men torn inwardly between tribal emotions and scattered fragments of thought-the products of modern education who do not like the nature of what they feel, but have never learned to think.

Since early childhood, their emotions have been conditioned by the tribal premise that one must "belong," one must be "in," one must swim with the "mainstream," one must follow the lead of "those who know." A man's frustrated mind adds another emotion to the tribal conditioning: a blindly bitter resentment of his own intellectual subservience. Modern men are gregarious and antisocial at the same time. They have no inkling of what const.i.tutes a rational human a.s.sociation.

There is a crucial difference between an a.s.sociation and a tribe. Just as a proper society is ruled by laws, not by men, so a proper a.s.sociation is united by ideas, not by men, and its members are loyal to the ideas, not to the group. It is eminently reasonable that men should seek to a.s.sociate with those who share their convictions and values. It is impossible to deal or even to communicate with men whose ideas are fundamentally opposed to one's own (and one should be free not to deal with them). All proper a.s.sociations are formed or joined by individual choice and on conscious, intellectual grounds (philosophical, political, professional, etc.)-not by the physiological or geographical accident of birth, and not on the ground of tradition. When men are united by ideas, i.e., by explicit principles, there is no room for favors, whims, or arbitrary power: the principles serve as an objective objective criterion for determining actions and for criterion for determining actions and for judging judging men, whether leaders or members. men, whether leaders or members.

This requires a high degree of conceptual development and independence, which the anti-conceptual mentality is desperately struggling to avoid. But this is the only way men can work together justly, benevo-lently and safely. safely. There is no way for men to survive on the perceptual level of consciousness. There is no way for men to survive on the perceptual level of consciousness.

I am not a student of the theory of evolution and, therefore, I am neither its supporter nor its opponent. But a certain hypothesis has haunted me for years; I want to stress that it is only a hypothesis. There is an enormous breach of continuity between man and all the other living species. The difference lies in the nature of man's consciousness, in its distinctive characteristic: his conceptual faculty. It is as if, after aeons of physiological development, the evolutionary process altered its course, and the higher stages of development focused primarily on the consciousness of living species, not their bodies. But the development of a man's consciousness is volitional: no matter what the innate degree of his intelligence, he he must develop it, must develop it, he he must learn how to use it, must learn how to use it, he he must become a human being by choice. What if he does not choose to? Then he becomes a transitional phenomenon-a desperate creature that struggles frantically against his own nature, longing for the effortless "safety" of an animal's consciousness, which he cannot recapture, and rebelling against a human consciousness, which he is afraid to achieve. must become a human being by choice. What if he does not choose to? Then he becomes a transitional phenomenon-a desperate creature that struggles frantically against his own nature, longing for the effortless "safety" of an animal's consciousness, which he cannot recapture, and rebelling against a human consciousness, which he is afraid to achieve.

For years, scientists have been looking for a "missing link" between man and animals. Perhaps that missing link is the anti-conceptual mentality.

5

Selfishness Without a Self 1974

In ["The Missing Link"], I discussed the anti-conceptual mentality and its social (tribal) manifestations. All tribalists are anti-conceptual in various degrees, but not all anti-conceptual mentalities are tribalists. Some are lone wolves wolves (stressing that species' most predatory characteristics). (stressing that species' most predatory characteristics).

The majority of such wolves are frustrated tribalists, i.e., persons rejected by the tribe (or by the people of their immediate environment): they are too unreliable to abide by conventional rules, and too crudely manipulative to compete for tribal power. Since a perceptual mentality cannot provide a man with a way of survival, such a person, left to his own devices, becomes a kind of intellectual hobo, roaming about as an eclectic second-hander or brainpicker, s.n.a.t.c.hing bits of ideas at random, switching them at whim, with only one constant in his behavior: the drifting from group to group, the need to cling to people, any sort of people, and to manipulate them.

Whatever theoretical constructs he may be able to spin and juggle in various fields, it is the field of ethics that fills him with the deepest sense of terror and of his own impotence. Ethics is a conceptual discipline; loyalty to a code of values requires the ability to grasp abstract principles and to apply them to concrete situations and actions (even on the most primitive level of practicing some rudimentary moral commandments). The tribal lone wolf has no firsthand grasp of values. He senses that this is a lack he must conceal at any price-and that this issue, for him, is the hardest one to fake. The whims that guide him and switch from moment to moment or from year to year, cannot help him to conceive of an inner state of lifelong dedication to one's chosen values. His whims condition him to the opposite: they automatize his avoidance of any permanent commitment to anything or anyone. Without personal values, a man can have no sense of right or wrong. The tribal lone wolf is an amoralist amoralist all the way down. all the way down.

The clearest symptom by which one can recognize this type of person, is his total inability to judge himself, his actions, or his work by any sort of standard. The normal pattern of self-appraisal requires a reference to some abstract value or virtue-e.g., "I am good because I am rational," "I am good because I am honest," even the second-hander's notion of "I am good because people like me." Regardless of whether the value-standards involved are true or false, these examples imply the recognition of an essential moral principle: that one's own value has to be earned. earned.

The amoralist's implicit pattern of self-appraisal (which he seldom identifies or admits) is: "I am good because it's me. me."

Beyond the age of about three to five (i.e., beyond the perceptual level of mental development), this is not an expression of pride or self-esteem, but of the opposite: of a vacuum-of a stagnant, arrested mentality confessing its impotence to achieve any personal value or virtue.

Do not confuse this pattern with psychological subjectivism. A psychological subjectivist is unable fully to identify his values or to prove their objective validity, but he may be profoundly consistent and loyal to them in practice (though with terrible psycho-epistemological difficulty). The amoralist does not hold subjective values; he does not hold any any values. The implicit pattern of all his estimates is: "It's good because values. The implicit pattern of all his estimates is: "It's good because I I like it"-"It's right because like it"-"It's right because I I did it"-"It's true because did it"-"It's true because I I want it to be true." What is the "I" in these statements? A physical hulk driven by chronic anxiety. want it to be true." What is the "I" in these statements? A physical hulk driven by chronic anxiety.

The frequently encountered examples of this pattern are: the writer who rehashes some ancient bromides and feels that his work is new, because he he wrote it-the non-objective artist who feels that his smears are superior to those made by a monkey's tail, because wrote it-the non-objective artist who feels that his smears are superior to those made by a monkey's tail, because he he made them-the businessman who hires mediocrities because made them-the businessman who hires mediocrities because he he likes them-the political "idealist" who claims that racism is good if practiced by a minority (of likes them-the political "idealist" who claims that racism is good if practiced by a minority (of his his choice), but evil if practiced by a majority-and any advocate of any sort of double standard. choice), but evil if practiced by a majority-and any advocate of any sort of double standard.

But even such shoddy subst.i.tutes for morality are only a pretense: the amoralist does not believe that "I am good because it's me. me." That implicit policy is his protection against his deepest, never-to-be-identified conviction: "I am no good through and through." "I am no good through and through."

Love is a response to values. The amoralist's actual self-appraisal is revealed in his abnormal need to be loved (but not in the rational sense of the word)-to be "loved for himself," i.e., causelessly. causelessly. James Taggart reveals the nature of such a need: "I don't want to be loved James Taggart reveals the nature of such a need: "I don't want to be loved for for anything. I want to be loved for myself-not for anything I do or have or say or think. For myself-not for my body or mind or words or works or actions." ( anything. I want to be loved for myself-not for anything I do or have or say or think. For myself-not for my body or mind or words or works or actions." (Atlas Shrugged.) When his wife asks: "But then . . . what is is yourself?" he has no answer. yourself?" he has no answer.

As a real-life example: Years ago, I knew an older woman who was a writer and very intelligent, but inclined toward mysticism, embittered, hostile, lonely, and very unhappy. Her views of love and friends.h.i.+p were similar to James Taggart's. At the time of the publication of The Fountainhead, The Fountainhead, I told her that I was very grateful to Archibald Ogden, the editor who had threatened to resign if his employers did not publish it. She listened with a peculiar kind of skeptical or disapproving look, then said: "You don't have to feel grateful to him. He did not do it for I told her that I was very grateful to Archibald Ogden, the editor who had threatened to resign if his employers did not publish it. She listened with a peculiar kind of skeptical or disapproving look, then said: "You don't have to feel grateful to him. He did not do it for you. you. He did it to further his own career, because he thought it was a good book." I was truly appalled. I asked: "Do you mean that his action would be better-and that I should prefer it-if he thought it was a worthless book, but fought for its publication out of He did it to further his own career, because he thought it was a good book." I was truly appalled. I asked: "Do you mean that his action would be better-and that I should prefer it-if he thought it was a worthless book, but fought for its publication out of charity charity to me?" She would not answer and changed the subject. I was unable to get any explanation out of her. It took me many years to begin to understand. to me?" She would not answer and changed the subject. I was unable to get any explanation out of her. It took me many years to begin to understand.

A similar phenomenon, which had puzzled me for a long time, can be observed in politics. Commentators often exhort some politician to place the interests of the country above his own (or his party's) and to compromise with his opponents-and such exhortations are not addressed to petty grafters, but to reputable men. What does this mean? If the politician is convinced that his ideas are right, it is the country that he would betray by compromising. If he is convinced that his opponents' ideas are wrong, it is the country that he would be harming. If he is not certain of either, then he should check his views for his own sake, not merely the country's-because the truth or falsehood of his ideas should be of the utmost personal personal interest to him. interest to him.

But these considerations presuppose a conceptual consciousness that takes ideas seriously-i.e., that derives its views from principles derived from reality. A perceptual consciousness is unable to believe that ideas can be of personal personal importance to anyone; it regards ideas as a matter of arbitrary choice, as means to some immediate ends. On this view, a man does not seek to be elected to a public office in order to carry out certain policies-he advocates certain policies in order to be elected. If so, then why on earth should he want to be elected? Perceptual mentalities never ask such a question: the concept of a long-range goal is outside their limits. (There are a great many politicians and a great many commentators of that type-and since that mentality is taken for granted as proper and normal, what does this indicate about the intellectual state of today's culture?) importance to anyone; it regards ideas as a matter of arbitrary choice, as means to some immediate ends. On this view, a man does not seek to be elected to a public office in order to carry out certain policies-he advocates certain policies in order to be elected. If so, then why on earth should he want to be elected? Perceptual mentalities never ask such a question: the concept of a long-range goal is outside their limits. (There are a great many politicians and a great many commentators of that type-and since that mentality is taken for granted as proper and normal, what does this indicate about the intellectual state of today's culture?) If a man subordinates ideas and principles to his "personal interests," what are his personal interests and by what means does he determine them? Consider the senseless, selfless drudgery to which a politician condemns himself if the goal of his work-the proper administration of the country-is of no personal interest to him (or a lawyer, if justice is of no personal interest to him; or a writer, if the objective value of his books is of no personal interest to him, as the woman I quoted was suggesting). But a perceptual mentality is incapable of generating values or goals, and has to pick them secondhand, as the given, then go through the expected motions. (Not all such men are tribal lone wolves-some are faithful, bewildered tribalists out of their psycho-epistemological depth-but all are anti-conceptual mentalities.) With all of his emphasis on "himself" (and on being "loved for himself"), the tribal lone wolf has no self and no personal interests, only momentary whims. He is aware of his own immediate sensations and of very little else. Observe that whenever he ventures to speak of spiritual (i.e., intellectual) values-of the things he personally loves or admires-one is shocked by the triteness, the vulgarity, the borrowed tras.h.i.+ness of what comes out of him.

A tribal lone wolf feels that his "self" is dissociated from his actions, his work, his pursuits, his ideas. All these, he feels, are things that some outside power-society or reality or the material universe-has somehow forced on him. His real "self," he feels, is some ineffable ent.i.ty devoid of attributes. One thing is true: his "self" is is ineffable, i.e., non-existent. A man's self is his mind-the faculty that perceives reality, forms judgments, chooses values. To a tribal lone wolf, "reality" is a meaningless term; his metaphysics consists in the chronic feeling that life, somehow, is a conspiracy of people and things against ineffable, i.e., non-existent. A man's self is his mind-the faculty that perceives reality, forms judgments, chooses values. To a tribal lone wolf, "reality" is a meaningless term; his metaphysics consists in the chronic feeling that life, somehow, is a conspiracy of people and things against him, him, and he will walk over piles of corpses-in order to a.s.sert himself? no-in order to hide (or fill) the nagging inner vacuum left by his aborted self. and he will walk over piles of corpses-in order to a.s.sert himself? no-in order to hide (or fill) the nagging inner vacuum left by his aborted self.

The grim joke on mankind is the fact that he he is held up as a symbol of is held up as a symbol of selfishness. selfishness. This encourages him in his depredations: it gives him the hope of success in faking a stature he knows to be beyond his power. Selfishness is a profoundly philosophical, This encourages him in his depredations: it gives him the hope of success in faking a stature he knows to be beyond his power. Selfishness is a profoundly philosophical, conceptual conceptual achievement. Anyone who holds a tribal lone wolf as an image of selfishness, is merely confessing the perceptual nature of his own mental functioning. achievement. Anyone who holds a tribal lone wolf as an image of selfishness, is merely confessing the perceptual nature of his own mental functioning.

Yet the tribalists keep proclaiming that morality is an exclusively social phenomenon and that adherence to a tribe-any tribe-is the only way to keep men moral. But the docile members of a tribe are no better than their rejected wolfish brother and fully as amoral: their standard is "We're good because it's us. us."

The abdication and shriveling of the self is a salient characteristic of all perceptual mentalities, tribalist or lone-wolfish. All of them dread self-reliance; all of them dread the responsibilities which only a self (i.e., a conceptual consciousness) can perform, and they seek escape from the two activities which an actually selfish man would defend with his life: judgment and choice. They fear reason (which is exercised volition-ally) and trust their emotions (which are automatic)-they prefer relatives (an accident of birth) to friends (a matter of choice)-they prefer the tribe (the given) to outsiders (the new)-they prefer commandments (the memorized) to principles (the understood)-they welcome every theory of determinism, every notion that permits them to cry: "I couldn't help it!"

It is obvious why the morality of altruism altruism is a tribal phenomenon. Prehistorical men were physically unable to survive without clinging to a tribe for leaders.h.i.+p and protection against other tribes. The cause of altruism's perpetuation into civilized eras is not physical, but psycho-epistemological: the men of self-arrested, perceptual mentality are unable to survive without tribal leaders.h.i.+p and "protection" against reality. The doctrine of self-sacrifice does not offend them: they have no sense of self or of personal value-they do not know what it is that they are asked to sacrifice-they have no firsthand inkling of such things as intellectual integrity, love of truth, personally chosen values, or a pa.s.sionate dedication to an idea. When they hear injunctions against "selfishness," they believe that what they must renounce is the brute, mindless whim-wors.h.i.+p of a tribal lone wolf. But their leaders-the theoreticians of altruism-know better. Immanuel Kant knew it; John Dewey knew it; B. F. Skinner knows it; John Rawls knows it. Observe that it is not the mindless brute, but reason, intelligence, ability, merit, self-confidence, self-esteem that they are out to destroy. is a tribal phenomenon. Prehistorical men were physically unable to survive without clinging to a tribe for leaders.h.i.+p and protection against other tribes. The cause of altruism's perpetuation into civilized eras is not physical, but psycho-epistemological: the men of self-arrested, perceptual mentality are unable to survive without tribal leaders.h.i.+p and "protection" against reality. The doctrine of self-sacrifice does not offend them: they have no sense of self or of personal value-they do not know what it is that they are asked to sacrifice-they have no firsthand inkling of such things as intellectual integrity, love of truth, personally chosen values, or a pa.s.sionate dedication to an idea. When they hear injunctions against "selfishness," they believe that what they must renounce is the brute, mindless whim-wors.h.i.+p of a tribal lone wolf. But their leaders-the theoreticians of altruism-know better. Immanuel Kant knew it; John Dewey knew it; B. F. Skinner knows it; John Rawls knows it. Observe that it is not the mindless brute, but reason, intelligence, ability, merit, self-confidence, self-esteem that they are out to destroy.

Today, we are seeing a ghastly spectacle: a magnificent scientific civilization dominated by the morality of prehistorical savagery. The phenomenon that makes it possible is the split psycho-epistemology of "com-partmentalized" minds. Its best example are men who escape escape into the physical sciences (or technology or industry or business), hoping to find protection from human irrationality, and abandoning the field of ideas to the enemies of reason. Such refugees include some of mankind's best brains. But no such refuge is possible. These men, who perform feats of conceptual integration and rational thinking in their work, become helplessly anti-conceptual in all the other aspects of their lives, particularly in human relations.h.i.+ps and in social issues. (E.g., compare Einstein's scientific achievement to his political views.) into the physical sciences (or technology or industry or business), hoping to find protection from human irrationality, and abandoning the field of ideas to the enemies of reason. Such refugees include some of mankind's best brains. But no such refuge is possible. These men, who perform feats of conceptual integration and rational thinking in their work, become helplessly anti-conceptual in all the other aspects of their lives, particularly in human relations.h.i.+ps and in social issues. (E.g., compare Einstein's scientific achievement to his political views.) Man's progress requires specialization. But a division-of-labor society cannot survive without a rational philosophy-without a firm base of fundamental principles whose task is to train a human mind to be human, i.e., conceptual. conceptual.

6

An Open Letter to Boris Spa.s.sky 1974

Dear Comrade Spa.s.sky: I have been watching with great interest your world chess champions.h.i.+p match with Bobby Fischer. I am not a chess enthusiast or even a player, and know only the rudiments of the game. I am a novelist-philosopher by profession.

But I watched some of your games, reproduced play by play on television, and found them to be a fascinating demonstration of the enormous complexity of thought and planning required of a chess player-a demonstration of how many considerations he has to bear in mind, how many factors to integrate, how many contingencies to be prepared for, how far ahead to see and plan. It was obvious that you and your opponent had to have an unusual intellectual capacity.

Then I was struck by the realization that the game itself and the players' exercise of mental virtuosity are made possible by the metaphysical absolutism metaphysical absolutism of the reality with which they deal. The game is ruled by the Law of Ident.i.ty and its corollary, the Law of Causality. Each piece is what it is: a queen is a queen, a bishop is a bishop-and the actions each can perform are determined by its nature: a queen can move any distance in any open line, straight or diagonal, a bishop cannot; a rook can move from one side of the board to the other, a p.a.w.n cannot; etc. Their ident.i.ties and the rules of their movements are immutable-and this enables the player's mind to devise a complex, long-range strategy, so that the game depends on nothing but the power of his (and his opponent's) ingenuity. of the reality with which they deal. The game is ruled by the Law of Ident.i.ty and its corollary, the Law of Causality. Each piece is what it is: a queen is a queen, a bishop is a bishop-and the actions each can perform are determined by its nature: a queen can move any distance in any open line, straight or diagonal, a bishop cannot; a rook can move from one side of the board to the other, a p.a.w.n cannot; etc. Their ident.i.ties and the rules of their movements are immutable-and this enables the player's mind to devise a complex, long-range strategy, so that the game depends on nothing but the power of his (and his opponent's) ingenuity.

This led me to some questions that I should like to ask you.

1. Would you be able to play if, at a crucial moment-when, after hours of brain-wrenching effort, you had succeeded in cornering your opponent-an unknown, arbitrary power suddenly changed the rules of the game in his favor, allowing, say, his bishops to move like queens? You would not be able to continue? Yet out in the living world, this is the law of your country-and this is the condition in which your countrymen are expected, not to play, but to live.2. Would you be able to play if the rules of chess were updated to conform to a dialectic reality, in which opposites merge-so that, at a crucial moment, your queen turned suddenly from White to Black, becoming the queen of your opponent, and then turned Gray, belonging to both of you? You would not be able to continue? Yet in the living world, this is the view of reality your countrymen are taught to accept, to absorb, and to live by.3. Would you be able to play if you had to play by teamwork-i.e., if you were forbidden to think or act alone and had to play not with a group of advisers, but with a team that determined your every move by vote? Since, as champion, you would be the best mind among them, how much time and effort would you have to spend persuading the team that your your strategy is the best? Would you be likely to succeed? And what would you do if some pragmatist, range-of-the-moment mentalities voted to grab an opponent's knight at the price of a checkmate to you three moves later? You would not be able to continue? Yet in the living world, this is the theoretical ideal of your country, and this is the method by which it proposes to deal (someday) with scientific research, industrial production, and every other kind of activity required for man's survival. strategy is the best? Would you be likely to succeed? And what would you do if some pragmatist, range-of-the-moment mentalities voted to grab an opponent's knight at the price of a checkmate to you three moves later? You would not be able to continue? Yet in the living world, this is the theoretical ideal of your country, and this is the method by which it proposes to deal (someday) with scientific research, industrial production, and every other kind of activity required for man's survival.4. Would you be able to play if the c.u.mbersome mechanism of teamwork were streamlined, and your moves were dictated simply by a man standing behind you, with a gun pressed to your back-a man who would not explain or argue, his gun being his only argument and sole qualification? You would not be able to start, let alone continue, playing? Yet in the living world, this is the practical policy under which men live-and die-in your country.5. Would you be able to play-or to enjoy the professional understanding, interest and acclaim of an international Chess Federation-if the rules of the game were splintered, and you played by "proletarian" rules while your opponent played by "bourgeois" rules? Would you say that such "polyrulism" is more preposterous than polylogism? Yet in the living world, your country professes to seek global harmony and understanding, while proclaiming that she follows "proletarian" logic and that others follow "bourgeois" logic, or "Aryan" logic, or "third-world" logic, etc.6. Would you be able to play if the rules of the game remained as they are at present, with one exception: that the p.a.w.ns were declared to be the most valuable and non-expendable pieces (since they may symbolize the ma.s.ses) which had to be protected at the price of sacrificing the more efficacious pieces (the individuals)? You might claim a draw on the answer to this one-since it is not only your country, but the whole living world that accepts this sort of rule in morality.7. Would you care care to play, if the rules of the game remained unchanged, but the distribution of rewards were altered in accordance with egalitarian principles: if the prizes, the honors, the fame were given not to the winner, but to the loser-if winning were regarded as a symptom of selfishness, and the winner were penalized for the crime of possessing a superior intelligence, the penalty consisting in suspension for a year, in order to give others a chance? Would you and your opponent try playing not to win, but to lose? What would this do to your mind? to play, if the rules of the game remained unchanged, but the distribution of rewards were altered in accordance with egalitarian principles: if the prizes, the honors, the fame were given not to the winner, but to the loser-if winning were regarded as a symptom of selfishness, and the winner were penalized for the crime of possessing a superior intelligence, the penalty consisting in suspension for a year, in order to give others a chance? Would you and your opponent try playing not to win, but to lose? What would this do to your mind?

You do not have to answer me, Comrade. You are not free to speak or even to think of such questions-and I know the answers. No, you would not be able to play under any of the conditions listed above. It is to escape this category of phenomena that you fled into the world of chess.

Oh yes, Comrade, chess is an escape-an escape from reality. It is an "out," a kind of "make-work" for a man of higher than average intelligence who was afraid to live, but could not leave his mind unemployed and devoted it to a placebo-thus surrendering to others the living world he had rejected as too hard to understand.

Please do not take this to mean that I object to games as such: games are an important part of man's life, they provide a necessary rest, and chess may do so for men who live under the constant pressure of purposeful work. Besides, some games-such as sports contests, for instance-offer us an opportunity to see certain human skills developed to a level of perfection. But what would you think of a world champion runner who, in real life, moved about in a wheelchair? Or of a champion high jumper who crawled about on all fours? You, the chess professionals, are taken as exponents of the most precious of human skills: intellectual power-yet that power deserts you beyond the confines of the sixty-four squares of a chessboard, leaving you confused, anxious, and helplessly unfocused. Because, you see, the chessboard is not a training ground, but a subst.i.tute subst.i.tute for reality. for reality.

A gifted, precocious youth often finds himself bewildered by the world: it is people people that he cannot understand, it is their inexplicable, contradictory, messy behavior that frightens him. The enemy he rightly senses, but does not choose to fight, is human that he cannot understand, it is their inexplicable, contradictory, messy behavior that frightens him. The enemy he rightly senses, but does not choose to fight, is human irrationality. irrationality. He withdraws, gives up, and runs, looking for some sanctuary where his mind would be appreciated-and he falls into the b.o.o.by trap of chess. He withdraws, gives up, and runs, looking for some sanctuary where his mind would be appreciated-and he falls into the b.o.o.by trap of chess.

You, the chess professionals, live in a special world-a safe, protected, orderly world, in which all the great, fundamental principles of existence are so firmly established and obeyed that you do not even have to be aware of them. (They are the principles involved in my seven questions.) You do not know that these principles are the preconditions of your game-and you do not have to recognize them when you encounter them, or their breach, in reality. In your your world, you do not have to be concerned with them: all you have to do is world, you do not have to be concerned with them: all you have to do is think. think.

The process of thinking is man's basic means of survival. The pleasure of performing this process successfully-of experiencing the efficacy of one's own mind-is the most profound pleasure possible to men, and it is their deepest need, on any level of intelligence, great or small. So one can understand what attracts you to chess: you believe that you have found a world in which all irrelevant obstacles have been eliminated, and nothing matters, but the pure, triumphant exercise of your mind's powers. But have you, Comrade?

Unlike algebra, chess does not represent the abstraction abstraction-the basic pattern-of mental effort; it represents the opposite: it focuses mental effort on a set of concretes, and demands such complex calculations that a mind has no room for anything else. By creating an illusion of action and struggle, chess reduces the professional player's mind to an uncritical, unvaluing pa.s.sivity toward life. Chess removes the motor of intellectual effort-the question "What for?"-and leaves a somewhat frightening phenomenon: intellectual effort devoid of purpose.

If-for any number of reasons, psychological or existential-a man comes to believe that the living world is closed to him, that he has nothing to seek or to achieve, that no action is possible, then chess becomes his antidote, the means of drugging his own rebellious mind that refuses fully to believe it and to stand still. This, Comrade, is the reason why chess has always been so popular in your country, before and since its present regime-and why there have not been many American masters. You see, in this country, men are still free to act.

Because the rulers of your country have proclaimed this champions.h.i.+p match to be an ideological issue, a contest between Russia and America, I am rooting for Bobby to win-and so are all my friends. The reason why this match has aroused an unprecedented interest in our country is the longstanding frustration and indignation of the American people at your country's policy of attacks, provocations, and hooligan insolence-and at our own government's overtolerant, overcourteous patience. There is a widespread desire in our country to see Soviet Russia beaten in any way, shape or form, and-since we are all sick and tired of the global clashes among the faceless, anonymous ma.s.ses of collectives-the almost medieval drama of two individual knights fighting the battle of good against evil, appeals to us symbolically. (But this, of course, is only a symbol; you are not necessarily the voluntary defender of evil-for all we know, you might be as much its victim as the rest of the world.) Bobby Fischer's behavior, however, mars the symbolism-but it is a clear example of the clash between a chess expert's mind, and reality. This confident, disciplined, obviously brilliant player falls to pieces when he has to deal with the real world. He throws tantrums like a child, breaks agreements, makes arbitrary demands, and indulges in the kind of whim wors.h.i.+p one touch of which in the playing of chess would disqualify him for a high-school tournament. Thus he brings to the real world the very evil that made him escape it: irrationality. irrationality. A man who is afraid to sign a letter, who fears any firm commitment, who seeks the guidance of the arbitrary edicts of a mystic sect in order to learn how to live his life-is not a great, confident mind, but a tragically helpless victim, torn by acute anxiety and, perhaps, by a sense of treason to what might have been a great potential. A man who is afraid to sign a letter, who fears any firm commitment, who seeks the guidance of the arbitrary edicts of a mystic sect in order to learn how to live his life-is not a great, confident mind, but a tragically helpless victim, torn by acute anxiety and, perhaps, by a sense of treason to what might have been a great potential.

But, you may wish to say, the principles of reason are not applicable beyond the limit of a chessboard, they are merely a human invention, they are impotent against the chaos outside, they have no chance in the real world. If this were true, none of us would have survived nor even been born, because the human species would have perished long ago. If, under irrational rules, like the ones I listed above, men could not even play a game, how could they live? It is not reason, but irrationality that is a human invention-or, rather, a default.

Nature (reality) is just as absolutist as chess, and her rules (laws) are just as immutable (more so)-but her rules and their applications are much, much more complex, and have to be discovered by man. And just as a man may memorize the rules of chess, but has to use his own mind in order to apply them, i.e., in order to play well-so each man has to use his own mind in order to apply the rules of nature, i.e., in order to live successfully. A long time ago, the grandmaster of all grandmasters gave us the basic principles of the method by which one discovers the rules of nature and of life. His name was Aristotle.

Would you have wanted to escape into chess, if you lived in a society based on Aristotelian principles? It would be a country where the rules were objective, firm and clear, where you could use the power of your mind to its fullest extent, on any scale you wished, where you would gain rewards for your achievements, and men who chose to be irrational would not have the power to stop you nor to harm anyone but themselves. Such a social system could not be devised, you say? But it was was devised, and it came close to full existence-only, the mentalities whose level was playing jacks or c.r.a.ps, the men with the guns and their witch doctors, did not want mankind to know it. It was called devised, and it came close to full existence-only, the mentalities whose level was playing jacks or c.r.a.ps, the men with the guns and their witch doctors, did not want mankind to know it. It was called Capitalism. Capitalism.

But on this issue, Comrade, you may claim a draw: your country does not know the meaning of that word-and, today, most people in our country do not know it, either.

Sincerely, AYN RAND

7

Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World 1960

(A lecture delivered at Yale University on February 17, 1960; at Brooklyn College on April 4, 1960; and at Columbia University on May 5, 1960.)

If you want me to name in one sentence what is wrong with the modern world, I will say that never before has the world been clamoring so desperately for answers to crucial problems-and never before has the world been so frantically committed to the belief that no answers are possible.

Observe the peculiar nature of this contradiction and the peculiar emotional atmosphere of our age. There have been periods in history when men failed to find answers because they evaded the existence of the problems, pretended that nothing threatened them and denounced anyone who spoke of approaching disaster. This is not the predominant att.i.tude of our age. Today, the voices proclaiming disaster are so fas.h.i.+onable a bromide that people are battered into apathy by their monotonous insistence; but the anxiety under that apathy is real. Consciously or subconsciously, intellectually or emotionally, most people today know that the world is in a terrible state and that it cannot continue on its present course much longer.

The existence of the problems is acknowledged, yet we hear nothing but meaningless generalities and shameful evasions from our so-called intellectual leaders. Wherever you look-whether in philosophical publications, or intellectual magazines, or newspaper editorials or political speeches of either party-you find the same men