The Rewrite Squad

[Robert Campbell]

Ford Hall Forum 1974

Q&A, Track 3, 1:45 through 2:59

JL: Your opinion of the junta that overturned Allende [in Chile], and the statement of the gentleman is that the junta tortured and massacred thousands.

A: Those stories I don’t believe; I would want to have proof from some authorities better than the extreme Left. But I express my opinion of the junta: I don’t think that they have any idea what they’re doing, I don’t think they’re, know what they want—if they do, they’re going about it the wrong way. I think they’re immeasurably better than what, than the Allende government, but I don’t believe they will be able to achieve much, because the country is wrecked. Uhh, I don’t know any signs of their ideology. They had none before, which was what permitted Allende, who was incidentally a minority, euhh, government—he did not get a real majority—but it was made possible by the fact that his opposition didn’t have any particular prob, program, and the experience has not given them any particular program. But compared to Allende I would say they’re gentlemen and scholars and giants. [some laughter from audience]

Ayn Rand Answers (p. 98)

At present, I don’t believe those stories. I want proof from authorities more reliable than extreme leftists. Given what I do know of the junta, I’d say they have no idea what they’re doing; and, I don’t think they’ll achieve much, because the country is too Red. But they’re better than the Allende government.

Another hand-in-the-cookie-jar moment. Instead of admitting that Rand was wrong in rejecting early reports of murder and torture by the Pinochet regime, Mayhew slips in an “at present” that was not in her statement.

Rendering “the country is wrecked” as “the country is too Red” is a symptom of negligence on the part of the transriber. Rand wasn’t accustomed to using “Red” as a political expression in 1974, and her pronunciation of “wrecked” is clear on the recording. Her additional comments about Allende being supported by a minority but his opponents not having a discernible program, which Mayhew saw fit to cut, are inconsistent with any judgment that Chile had somehow gone Communist.

[Robert Campbell]

Ford Hall Forum 1974

Q&A, Track 2, 5:34 through 7:49

JL: [What] do you think Alan Greenspan will be able to accomplish in his present role…

A: The first part of the question…

JL: The first part of the question had to do with in The Fountainhead, you discussed the individual as opposed to boards.

A: Oh… [audience laughs] I do not know what Alan Greenspan will be able to accomplish; I don't think he can know; nobody knows. All we know is only this: the situation is desperate. Five years ago, Alan Greenspan wouldn't have considered going to Washington; he is not interested in a political career. It is precisely because the situation is desperate that he accepted that invitation, on the chance that he might be able to persuade some honest people in Washington who literally are helpless but know that the situation is terribly dangerous.

Nobody can foretell what any one person will do, particularly in politics. A single individual like Roark, against the board of private individuals, has a very good chance because if he doesn't agree with one board, he can go to 10 others, or to a single private client, but in today's situation in Washington—and there are a number of men there who are intelligent and good, particularly in economics, and they understand the situation—I do not know whether any of them can do anything, because, remember, the Executive Branch does not write the laws. It's up to Congress, and Congress is afraid of its constituents, so that indirectly really it's up to public opinion. But to the extent to which Alan Greenspan might succeed in some aspect of something, or in softening some disaster, to that extent he will save time for all of us, and maybe our lives. I hope so, but I would not predict anything. Nobody can tell.

Ayn Rand Answers (p. 42)

[Mayhew renders the question as "How much do you think Alan Greenspan will accomplish in his present role?" His editing turns the appearance of Howard Roark in the answer into somewhat of a mystery.]

[Robert Campbell]

Ford Hall Forum 1974

Q&A, Track 3, 4:43 through 5:40

JL: This young lady says that she has not noticed any mention of Beethoven's music in your writings and she wonders whether you will comment as to your reaction to Beethoven's compositions.

A: Well, the only time I ever mentioned composers by name was in The Fountainhead, where I mentioned Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky, who they happen to be my favorites, and that leaves an awful lot of composers whom I have not mentioned. [Laughter from audience] There is no reason for me to, but I'll be glad to tell you.

I do not like Beethoven. I can recognize that he's a great musician, but if you have read my theory of aeshetics, his sense of life is the exact opposite of mine. He is a giant representing the malevolent universe, the Byronic or hopeless or doomed view of life; that's the exact opposite of what I stand for.

Ayn Rand Answers: not included.

[jeffrey smith]

Ford Hall Forum 1974

Q&A, Track 3, 4:43 through 5:40

JL: This young lady says that she has not noticed any mention of Beethoven's music in your writings and she wonders whether you will comment as to your reaction to Beethoven's compositions.

A: Well, the only time I ever mentioned composers by name was in The Fountainhead, where I mentioned Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky, who they happen to be my favorites, and that leaves an awful lot of composers whom I have not mentioned. [Laughter from audience] There is no reason for me to, but I'll be glad to tell you.

I do not like Beethoven. I can recognize that he's a great musician, but if you have read my theory of aeshetics, his sense of life is the exact opposite of mine. He is a giant representing the malevolent universe, the Byronic or hopeless or doomed view of life; that's the exact opposite of what I stand for.

Ayn Rand Answers: not included.

It's a shame that only a short form of this answer (which reduces it to "Beethoven's music is malevolent") gets airplay. The full answer is a reasonable interpretation, although one which I think is wrong. But it's not the mad hatter version that people fling about the intertubes.

Jeffrey S.

[Brant Gaede]

Thx, Robt., for this thread.

--Brant

[Backlighting]

This is my favorite thread. Thank you Robert! and a healthy, happy 2010 to all.

[Robert Campbell]

Ford Hall Forum 1972

Q&A, 9:40 through 11:04

Q: I have an epistemological question. Do you view the cognitive relation in terms of intentionality, as does the neo-Thomist H. B. Veatch?

A: No! And I don't even know who he is, but I don't speak that kind of language. Intentionality? Do you mean volition? Yes.

Judge Lurie: Please, Miss Rand, please. Now, let's quiet down. (To questioner:) I want you to put your question simply and don't seek an effect.

(The questioner can't reword it to his satisfaction, so Judge Lurie dismisses the question and moves on.)

Ayn Rand Answers: not included

[Doug Rasmussen asked a friend to bring this question up at the Ford Hall Forum. The effort was not a success.]

[Robert Campbell]

Ford Hall Forum 1972

Q&A, 7:56 though 9:40

Q: Do you feel that altruism is an impossibility or something that is undesirable?

A: Uh, as an unspeakable evil would be exact. [Applause]

Yes, uh, eahh, it is an impossibility if any naïve man attempts voluntarily to practice; there is no such thing. However, it is a great possibility, on the part of the executioners, not the victims.

For an innocent man or a victim who would like to practice altruism, it is not possible, unless he leaps into the first pot where, uh, cannibals are cooking a dinner; so long as he lives, he is not an altruist. But just think of what the receivers of altruistic sacrifice can do. Altruism is the only excuse used, the only justification used by every dictatorship, every tyranny, every despotism: Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and today's American—I don't know what to call them, uh, but they are not even liberals any more. Every time you want something immoral, unearned, and belonging to someone else, you try to invoke altruism, and in that way it is very possible, and the sea of blood in history is the best demonstration of it.

Ayn Rand Answers (p. 111)

It is an unspeakable evil. It is impossible for the naïve man who attempts to practice it voluntarily; it is possible for altruism's executioners. An innocent man cannot altruism—not unless he leaps into the first cannibal's pot he sees, to provide the cannibal dinner. So long as he lives, he cannot be altruist. But think of what the executioners—the recipients—of altruistic sacrifice can do. Altruism is the sole justification used by every dictatorship—for example, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. And it's used in America today any time anyone wants something immoral or unearned. In that sense, altruism is possible, as the sea of blood throughout history demonstrates.

Mayhew's rewrite looks to have been guided by the assumption that he is a better rhetorician than Ayn Rand was. He isn't. Not even close.

[Brant Gaede]

Ford Hall Forum 1972

Q&A, 9:40 through 11:04

Q: I have an epistemological question. Do you view the cognitive relation in terms of intentionality, as does the neo-Thomist H. B. Veatch?

A: No! And I don't even know who he is, but I don't speak that kind of language. Intentionality? Do you mean volition? Yes.

Judge Lurie: Please, Miss Rand, please. Now, let's quiet down. (To questioner:) I want you to put your question simply and don't seek an effect.

(The questioner can't reword it to his satisfaction, so Judge Lurie dismisses the question and moves on.)

Ayn Rand Answers: not included

[Doug Rasmussen asked a friend to bring this question up at the Ford Hall Forum. The effort was not a success.]

Boy, I think I remember this. Nostalgia.

--Brant

edit: I don't think I remember this; I do.

Edited July 25, 2010 by Robert Campbell

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

I certainly remember this.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

Ford Hall Forum 1972

Q&A, 11:12 through 13:57

Q: Do you think that it is important to be politically involved? And if you do, how would you intend to change our politics and politicians?

A: In the same… uh, no, first, on the first part of your question…

No, I don't think it's important to be politically active today. I think it is crucially important to vote. If and whenever two candidates are more or less the same, then even that's not a duty if you can't make up your mind. But in an election like, uh, this time, it is so clear-cut, even if neither side fully admits it, uh that, uh, to the extent to which you want to preserve your rights at all, you should vote.

Now how do I propose to change our politicians? I really don't, except to observe how they changed into what they are. So long as a questi, country is even semi-free, the politicians are not its determining element. They are what the electorate or public opinion in effect makes them, or what they think public opinion wants of them. They have demonstrated that very clearly.

Therefore, before one can en, engage in politics, one should engage in educational work. I have said that repeatedly. What we need is an educational campaign aimed to spread a new philosophy, to make people understand what are individual rights, why they are rights, why altruism is wrong, and, ehh, the battle should be conducted by every person who is articulate at all. If you understand your ideas, try to spread them to as many people as you can; that is how public opinion changes, and that will change politicians.

But if you ask me about what social institution is mainly, as an institution, the cause of our problems, I would say the colleges and universities. If you want to reform any one institution, start there, because it's philosophy that really determines a culture, which det, determines the direction of a country, and philosophy is the specialty of the universities. That's where it comes from; that's who spreads it to every other profession. So if you want a crusade, start with the colleges.

Ayn Rand Answers (pp. 50-51)

[Mayhew changed the word "duty" to "obligation." But isn't the more important question why any American would be under an obligation to vote in Presidential elections?

He changes "colleges" in the final sentence to "universities."]

[Brant Gaede]

What an example of linear thinking! She never considered politics and working backwards even tho that's just what she herself did. She saw the Russian Revolution and its takeover and IDed the politics consequent to altruism and ended up where philosophy began--and then denied that education to all others! No! First the metaphysics-epistemology, child, then the ethics then the politics--what BS!

--Brant

more than one way to skin a cat!

[Chris Grieb]

Ford Hall Forum 1972

Q&A, 9:40 through 11:04

Q: I have an epistemological question. Do you view the cognitive relation in terms of intentionality, as does the neo-Thomist H. B. Veatch?

A: No! And I don't even know who he is, but I don't speak that kind of language. Intentionality? Do you mean volition? Yes.

Judge Lurie: Please, Miss Rand, please. Now, let's quiet down. (To questioner:) I want you to put your question simply and don't seek an effect.

(The questioner can't reword it to his satisfaction, so Judge Lurie dismisses the question and moves on.)

Ayn Rand Answers: not included

[Doug Rasmussen asked a friend to bring this question up at the Ford Hall Forum. The effort was not a success.]

Boy, I think I remember this. Nostalgia.

--Brant

edit: I don't think I remember this; I do.

I too remember this event. A philosphy student who was also an Objectivist recognized Veitch's name but I don't think he could tell me anything about it.

[Robert Campbell]

Brant,

You've made an excellent developmental psychology point.

In her own development, Rand arrived at her metaphysics and epistemology last. So far as we know, she didn't get seriously into either subject until she was 40.

But everyone else, she thought, would have to start with them.

Robert Campbell

[Alfonso Jones]

What an example of linear thinking! She never considered politics and working backwards even tho that's just what she herself did. She saw the Russian Revolution and its takeover and IDed the politics consequent to altruism and ended up where philosophy began--and then denied that education to all others! No! First the metaphysics-epistemology, child, then the ethics then the politics--what BS!

--Brant

more than one way to skin a cat!

Brant -

This phenomenon of the most natural path to learn something being different from the logical structure is not unique to this context:

1) In the case of individual learning about mathematics - - - One doesn't learn about mathematics (broadly speaking) by beginning with a study of Peano's Axioms and moving from there to arithmetic based on integers, etc... (Or, in general, based on starting with the theoretical abstraction and then moving to the specific.) Long before Peano's Axioms, the student ie learning about 4 apples + 3 apples = 7 apples, and that the "same thing" works with oranges...

2) In the case of organizational learning: I have spent many years working with organizations large and small to help them make major improvements in organizational performance. A pattern I and many other consultants have learned is that organizations naturally (even with coaching at the executive and lower levels) tend to go through common and familiar stages of learning, in which they make "mistakes" which they outgrow as they learn. Efforts by advisors/consultants to prevent such mistakes tend to be futile -the best which can be usually done is to enable the organizations to learn quickly, minimize the impact of the natural mistakes, learn maximally from those mistakes, and stay on the improvement path.

Bill P

[Robert Campbell]

Ford Hall Forum 1972

Q&A, 20:34 through 21:07

Q: Are your plays Ideal and Think Twice available in print? If so, where can I get them? If not, why not?

A: Available in print? No. Why not? Because someday I might see them produced. [Applause] It's not a promise… It's not a promise; I don't know, but it might happen.

Ayn Rand Answers: not included

[Why did Rand deem it necessary to get these plays produced before publishing them? In any event, nothing happened, and Leonard Peikoff put them out posthumously.]

[Chris Grieb]

Ford Hall Forum 1972

Q&A, 20:34 through 21:07

Q: Are your plays Ideal and Think Twice available in print? If so, where can I get them? If not, why not?

A: Available in print? No. Why not? Because someday I might see them produced. [Applause] It's not a promise… It's not a promise; I don't know, but it might happen.

Ayn Rand Answers: not included

[Why did Rand deem it necessary to get these plays produced before publishing them? In any event, nothing happened, and Leonard Peikoff put them out posthumously.]

I wonder if the producing of Rand's other play may have been one of Branden's purposes for the NBI Theater. I suspect that the plan was the produce "The Fountainhead" than to do the unproduced Rand plays. I would that the failure of Night of January 16th and the break-up with the Smith's ended that idea.

[Robert Campbell]

Ford Hall Forum 1972

Q&A, 16:05 through 20:33

Q: What would be the basis for preference when two candidates are contradicting themselves? [A sentence or two that is hard to hear.] Which one would you think is better, the one who is contradicting himself now, or the one who has been contradicting himself for four years?

A: Well, I in effect answered that at the last part of my speech. Namely, in a mixed economy you will never get a fully consistent candidate, so everybody will in part be contradicting himself. So all that one can really do is observe the total of a political figure's, uh, speeches, uh, policies, actions and decide what does he really mean, what is his main line, what's is the dominant line—and then hope for the best.

Enh, Nixon is certainly not a great example of consistency [gathering applause], but look, he hasn't—he has never had the nerve to attempt to ask for a redistribution of your wealth. He has never asked for power. Observe that he is a man who is singularly not a power-luster; that's not … [Audience exclaims and hoots]. What power has he asked for? [Calls from the audience]

Judge Lurie: Wait a minute, wait a minute. In answer to your question as to what power he has sought, the suggestion has come from an irritated spectator; namely, wage and price controls.

A: Oh, certainly, that is a vicious program, but he wasn't asking for personal power. I mean a man who wants to control your personal life. I spoke about the wage and price controls here, uh, a year ago; I'm opposed to it as I can be. But, observe, he hasn't even, uh, enforced those controls, fortunately [audience buzzing]; I wouldn't think it's impossible that he will. But he is not doing it to seek personal power.

If you look at one close-up of McGovern, you know that that's what he's after [applause]. Nobody can advocate the right to prescribe how much money are men entitled to make and then grab everything else. That proposal of $12,000 a year is a monstrous proposal. It is really worse than Communism—why, I will refer you to articles I wrote on that subject in the Ayn Rand Letter; I can't make a long lecture of it now. But it is an unspeakable proposal, which he then very quickly had of course to retract.

But to answer, to finish up your question, the only way you can really judge today's hyp, hypocrites is to look not at the details, but at their basic principles. What kind of fundamentals; that is, a principle affecting a great part of your life and of the country's? What is he sticking to consistently? And judge him by that.

Nixon is not much, and I'm not endorsing him en, enthusiastically. What I'm endorsing is individual rights, and when you smell a collectivist, then you have to fight for your life. And McGovern is certainly that—that's putting it mildly. [some applause]

Ayn Rand Answers (p. 61)

[Mayhew brought out the weed-whacker here. The last two paragraphs of the original answer have disappeared entirely from his rendition, and he has made big cuts elsewhere.]

[Brant Gaede]

Boy, do I remember this one. Nixon had power and wanted to keep it. Before he had it he went looking for it. But if you read Rand carefully here she was basically right because he was a blocker of the totalitarian, anti-American impulse of the left which eventually drove him from office and much later put Obama into power.

--Brant

[Robert Campbell]

Ford Hall Forum 1972

Q&A, 32:32 through 37:29

Q: Would you comment please on the difference between government that you advocate in Capitalism and the government that you find, say, in Galt's Gulch? I've heard it said by a friend of mine, why is this government, where judges and lawsuits are privately run, why is it denied to us mortals? That's how he puts it.

(Judge Lurie has trouble understanding the reference to Galt's Gulch, and asks questioner to clarify.)

Q: Why is the lack of government in Galt's Gulch in Atlas Shrugged …

A: Denied to whom?

Q: Denied to a rational, a hypothetical, rational society.

A: Because Galt's Gulch is not a society; it's private estate. It is owned by one man who selects those who are admitted so carefully, and even then they have a judge as an arbiter if anything ever came up—only nothing came up among them because they were all men sharing the same philosophy. But in a general society, God help you! If you had a society which all shared one philosophy, that would be dreadful.

Galt's Gulch would cons, probably have consisted of—I never named the number—let's say, optimistically, a thousand people who represent the top genius of the world. Even then, they would agree on fundamentals, but they would never be totally identical. And the reason why they didn't need any government is because if they had disagreements, they were capable of resolving them rationally.

But now how do you project a society of multi-million nation, in which there can be every kind of viewpoint, every kind of brain, and every kind of morality, and you want no government? What do you think [pounding podium] I was talking about when I talked about the Middle Age? There is your no-government society, which leaves men at the mercy of the worst bandits possible, because when there is no government, every criminally inclined individual will resort to force, and every intellectually or morally inclined individual will be left helpless. Government is the absolute necessity if men are to have individual rights, for the simple reason that you do not leave force at the arbitrary whim of other individuals.

And your, euhh, so-called libertarian anarchism is nothing but whim worship if you refuse to see this point, because what you refuse to recognize is the need of objectivity among men, particularly, men of different views—and it is proper and good that mankind at large, or as a large a section as a nation—should have different views. It's good to have different views, provided you respect each other's rights. And there is no one to guard rights except a government under strictly objective rules.

How would you like it if McGovern had his own gang of policemen and Nixon his own? And instead of presenting a campaign, they were fighting it out in the streets? What do you think that would do to you? The rest of us would be caught in the crossfire. Would that make any sense? And yet it certainly has happened throughout history.

Ahh, a rational society, or a group of rational men, is not afraid of the government— they, in a proper society as existed even in this country in the beginning, a rational man doesn't have to know that a government exists, because the laws are clear and he never breaks any. That is the proper way for men to live, and that's the proper government.

Ayn Rand Answers (pp. 75-76)

Galt's Gulch is not a society; it's a private estate. It's owned by one man who carefully selected the people admitted. Even then, they had a judge as an arbitrator, if anything came up; only nothing came up among them, because they shared the same philosophy. But if you had a society in which all shared in the same philosophy, but without a government, that would be dreadful. Galt's Gulch probably consisted of about, optimistically, a thousand people who represented the top geniuses of the world. They agreed on fundamentals, but they would never be in total agreement. They didn't need a government because if they had disagreements, they could resolve them rationally.

But project a society of millions, in which there is every kind of viewpoint, every kind of brain, every kind of morality—and no government. That's the Middle Ages, your no-government society. Man was left at the mercy of bandits, because without government, every criminally inclined individual resorts to force, and every morally inclined individual is helpless. Government is an absolute necessity if individual rights are to be protected, because you don't leave force at the arbitrary whim of other individuals. Libertarian anarchism is pure whim worship, because what they refuse to recognize is the need of objectivity among men—particularly men of different views. And it's good that people within a nation should have different views, provided we respect each other's rights.

No one can guard rights, except a government under objective law. What if McGovern had his gang of policemen, and Nixon had his, and instead of campaigning they fought in the streets? This has happened throughout history. Rational men are not afraid of government. In a proper society, a rational man doesn't have to know the government exists, because the laws are clear and he never breaks them.

A classic example of insensitivity to what Rand was actually saying.

Mayhew drains some of the vehemence from this answer. More to the point, he gets rid of Rand's rejection of a "great society" in which everyone subscribes to the same philosophy. Leonard Peikoff and his followers "know" that Rand could not have expressed individualistic sentiments in 1972; she must have wanted a society in which everyone professes Objectivism.

[Robert Campbell]

For me, the original answer here was a significant find. I vaguely remembered it as a standard Randian critique of anarchism.

But in it, Ayn Rand appears to argue that in a Great Society (in Hayek's sense, not LBJ's) people shouldn't all agree philosophically. This is radically different from the concession that they almost certainly wouldn't agree philosophically.

I'd always thought that for Rand—as for her most orthodox followers, and even for some who aren't so orthodox—the ideal society would be one in which every adult of average or above-average intelligence adheres to Objectivism.

In this answer, she sounds surprisingly like Mill or Hayek.

Mayhew must have found it jarring, too, hence he toned down her declaration:

But in a general society, God help you! If you had a society which all shared one philosophy, that would be dreadful.

Robert Campbell

[Greybird]

[...] And your, euhh, so-called libertarian anarchism is nothing but whim worship if you refuse to see this point, because what you refuse to recognize is the need of objectivity among men, particularly, men of different views — and it is proper and good that mankind at large, or as a large a section as a nation — should have different views. It’s good to have different views, provided you respect each other’s rights.

If Rand had chosen to actually read any libertarian theorists, she would have seen that the need for objectivity in dealing with disputes is explicitly acknowledged. One glance, for example, at Murray Rothbard's Man, Economy, and State could have told her this — in either the original truncated version, or in the analyses of intervention that were later expanded into Power and Market. (And, albeit after Rand's death, more fully expanded yet in his Ethics of Liberty.)

But she had no use for reading anyone she didn't like any more. And if she had no use for them, they thereby didn't exist, and could not invalidate her "argument." Thus she was pretending that her loves and hates shaped intellectual realities.

That, along with her analyzing authors through third parties' book reviews, made me wonder if she'd lost her moorings in those post-Split days. Yet that's nothing new, as I've wondered that for over 30 years now.

Robert is quite right that uncovering Rand's welcoming (!) of philosophic heterodoxy is a significant development. And Mayhew's airbrushing of it back into the Memory Hole is a significant travesty, on top of all the others he's perpetrated.

I guess, though, the ARIan cloister in Irvine would tumble down the rocks into the Pacific if it were ever acknowledged that Rand shared a notable point about societal-level "spontaneous order" with — horrors! — Friedrich Hayek.

[Robert Campbell]

Ford Hall Forum 1972

Q&A, 28:46 through 30:56

Q: Miss Rand, will you please discuss the nature of free will—that is, the nature of the decision to focus or not to focus your mind?

A: That is so wide a subject, what would be your specific question? I can't just give you a treatise about it. What, do you have a question about it?

Q: I've read your work about free will, and the question to my mind is how exactly this choice functions. Is it a rational choice? Do you have to have knowledge before you make the choice?

A: No, it's a primary choice. Eahh, that is, you will not be rational if your mind isn't focused. And, but, conversely, once you have acquired the rudiments of reason, you focus your mind consciously and volitionally.

But how do you learn to focus it, originally? In the same way an infant learns to focus his mi, eyes. You know that he is born without the capacity to see and the focusing of eyes is an acquired, euhh, attribute of an infant, but it's done automatically, euhh, even there I'm not sure that it's entirely automatic. At least from what we can observe, uhh, no volition on the infant's part is necessary because if his eyes are not damaged and he's not feeble-minded, he learns to focus them.

Now, why does he learn to focus them? Well, he's trying to see; he's trying to perceive. In the same way a very young child, perhaps an infant, learns to focus his mind, ehh, in the form of: he wants to know something, he wants to perceive, he wants to understand clearly. That is the beginning from which a fully conscious, rational focus comes.

Ayn Rand Answers (p. 154)

Mayhew took out "because if his eyes are not damaged and he's not feeble-minded, he learns to focus them."

[Robert Campbell]

Ford Hall Forum 1969

Q&A, 36:48 through 38:15

Q: Miss Rand, I'd like to know your views on, what is your purpose on earth, and what will happen to you after you die.

A: My purpose…

Second and simplest, I assume that when I die, I will be buried. [Laughter and applause] No, uh, I do not believe in any form of life after death, nor any form of mysticism.

This doesn't mean that I believe that man's mind is necessarily materialistic, but I don't believe that it is mystical. We know that we have a mind and we have a consc, a body and a mind, and neither can exist without the other. Therefore, when I die, that will be the end of me, the person.

I don't think it will be the end of my philosophy. [Applause]

Ayn Rand Answers (p. 232)

I assume I'll be buried. I don't believe in mysticism or life after death. This doesn't mean I believe that man's mind is necessarily materialistic; but neither is it mystical. We know that we have a mind and a body, and that neither can exist without the other. Therefore, when I die, that will be the end of me. I don't think it will be the end of my philosophy.

[she returned to the purpose question at the end of her next answer.]

[Robert Campbell]

Ford Hall Forum 1969

Q&A, 38:25 through 45:18

(Original questioner is only partly audible; refers to a "dichotomy" between reason and emotion.)

JL: Could you retain your rationality if you gave up the idea of productivity as an end of life, and is there not a dichotomy between those that are engaged productively and those that do not engage productively?

A: Well, to take, ehh, your question from the beginning, you said "my dichotomy." I specifically said I deny the existence of any dichotomy between reason and emotion.

If you want the detail of my theory, you will find in my writing, but stated in one second, in one sentence: Emotions are the product of your thinking or your evasion; emotions are the result of your rational faculty, and they're created by you, either chosen consciously or subconsciously. They are a subconscious response, but they are directed by your conscious mind—therefore, I do not believe there is a dichotomy.

It is Nietzsche, it is Lindbergh, it is the hippies, who do believe that there is a dichotomy, and, uh, why do they believe it? In order to place emotions above reason. It's when you reverse the relationship between reason and emotion and when you decide that your mind has to be the servant of, or the subordinate of, your wishes; it's then that you put yourself in a position of an inner conflict and of a dichotomy.

I do not believe that a dichotomy, in the sense of, uhh, antagonists with opposite natures and requirements exists. But it is created inside an irrational man and by an irrational society. That's your first dichotomy.

Ayn Rand Answers (p. 160)

Mayhew cut Rand's reference to Lindbergh and her explication in terms of "antagonists with opposite natures."

I doubt Mayhew heard the first part of the original question any better than I did. To this excerpt he fitted the question, "Could you explain the dichotomy between reason and emotion?"

Back to the original answer:

Now the second one is between the productive and the non-productive. (Judge Lurie confirms.) Well, yes, you worded it in a somewhat interesting way. You said "those who do not feel it is necessary to produce"? (Judge Lurie confirms.) Well, it would be the neatest trick of the week and of the century if you could point to me some people who do not find it necessary to produce and who are not supported like parasites by other people.

You see, it isn't a dichotomy, and it isn't a personal preference of some men that requires that men produce what they need. That is in the nature—in the metaphysical nature—of reality; by metaphysical I mean as it is, not subject to human change. It is in the nature of man that he has to be productive, if he is to survive.

Now, if men do n, and, but … when I say productive, I do not mean that everybody has to have, make a million dollars or more, or discover new fantastic discoveries each day, or fly to the moon. No, you don't have to be constantly productive, nor on any particular scale. One has to be productive to the extent of one's own ability and goals. In order to exist at all, in order to make anything of your life, or to achieve any values, you need to produce your own material sustenance—and, more than that, you need the free leisure, the time, ehh, to develop your own skill and carry it further, whichever your career and your choice of ability. That's what reality demands. And since there is no escape from it, since bananas do not fall on us from heaven or trees, since man has to work, those who say "I do not feel I have to" mean, subconsciously or consciously, and demonstrate it in fact, that they intend to enslave others to support them. That is the immorality and the evil in the position of those who place something, anything above productivity.

When you speak of practical action, the first kind of course is reason—your exercise of rationality—that would enable you to produce. But if in the actual living of your life, you do not care to produce, that means you have no values. But if you have no values, then you're a vegetable and a not a man. And there, of course, most of the people who are anti-production do have values—parasitical values. There is no other, uhh, answer to that kind of dichotomy.

Now if anybody went on a desert island and said, "I don't want to produce, and I will not exploit anybody," that would be his inalienable right. Let him try it out there and see what he'll do, if he doesn't care to be productive, and see what happens to him. And if he wants to die, that's also his choice. But don't let him exploit the living.

Ayn Rand Answers: not included

Back to the original answer:

Ah, uh, I just remembered what was the second part of your question, you said what is my purpose in life … to enjoy my life …

Judge Lurie: That was his.

A: Uh?

JL: This young man.

A: I know that I didn't answer it, and it was a good one.

JL: Right.

A: I didn't want to appear to evade it. [Laughter]

My purpose is to enjoy my life in a rational way, meaning to use my mind to the greatest extent possible to me, to pursue, admire, and support human greatness when it pertains to reason. And, ehh, to make all my choices, all my decisions, uhh, by means of my rationality, and to expand my knowledge constantly.

I think that's a pretty ambitious program, and I've, uh, achieved most of it. [Applause]

Ayn Rand Answers (p. 231):

My purpose is to enjoy my life in a rational way: to use my mind to the greatest extent possible; to pursue, admire, and support human greatness; to make all my choices rationally; to expand my knowledge constantly. That's a pretty ambitious program, and I've achieved most of it.

Routine editing, Mayhew-style.