The Journals of Ayn Rand

Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Journals is
a
treat to read, because it is the raw evidence of Ayn Rand’s continuous growth across fifty years—her growth both as a philosopher and as an artist ...

-LEONARD PEIKOFF

LEONARD PEIKOFF is universally recognized as the world’s premier Ayn Rand scholar. He worked closely with Rand for thirty years and was designated by her as heir to her estate. He has taught philosophy at Hunter College and New York University. Dr. Peikoff’s books include
The Ominous Parallels
and
Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.
He is also co-editor of
The Ayn Rand Reader,
available in a Plume edition. For further information, you can go to his website, alshow com.

 

DAVID HARRIMAN has M.S. degrees in both physics and philosophy. He has taught philosophy at California State University, San Bernardino, and is working on a book on the philosophy of physics. He has worked with Leonard Peikoff for several years.

PLUME
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

 

Published by Plume, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.
Previously published in a Dutton edition.

 

First Plume Printing, August, 1999

Copyright © The Estate of Ayn Rand, 1997

Foreword copyright © Leonard Peikoff, 1997
Preface copyright © David Harriman, 1997
All rights reserved

The Library of Congress has catalogued the Dutton edition as follows:
Rand, Ayn.
Journals of Ayn Rand / edited by David Harriman ; foreword by Leonard Peikoff.
p. cm.
Includesindex.

eISBN : 978-1-101-13721-5

0-452-27887-2 (pbk.)
1. Rand, Ayn—Diaries. 2. Women novelists, American—20th century—Diaries.
3. Women philosophers—United States—Diaries. I. Harriman, David.
II. Peikoff, Leonard. III. Title.
PS3535.A547Z476 1997
818 5203—dc21
[B] 97-12737
CIP

 

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Information about other books by Ayn Rand and her philosophy, Objectivism, may be obtained by writing to OBJECTIVISM, Box 177, Murray Hill Station, New York, New York 10157 USA.

Ayn Rand’s
Journals
—my name for her notes to herself through the decades—is the bulk of her still unpublished work, arranged chronologically. What remains to be published are two lecture courses on writing, presently being edited, and her old film scripts.

The Journals contains most of AR’s notes for her three main novels—along with some early material, some notes made between The
Fountainhead
and
Atlas Shrugged,
and some notes from her final decades. The early material includes, among other things, AR’s first philosophic musings on paper in English, written in her twenties. The middle section includes a fascinating transitional statement of her ethics, never finished, and also a vigorous essay on why the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 did not violate the civil rights of the Hollywood Communists. The final section includes the notes for AR’s last projected novel,
To Lorne Dieterling.

Some pieces important to this volume have been lost. I refer to eight or ten scenarios for the silent screen, written in the twenties. These stories, several pages apiece, featured strong heroes, a passionate love interest, and non-stop action, often set in exotic locales; they exemplified an extravagant romanticism bubbling over with the excitement of living. I first came upon these scenarios in the eighties, after AR’s death. Had I been able to include them here, they would have brought a sorely needed balance to some other items, such as
The Little Street,
a bitter novelette from the same period. Mysteriously, these scenarios have disappeared from the Estate warehouse. If they should reappear, I promise to publish them.

Aside from occasional pieces, identified by the editor, the AR material in this book was written for herself, for her own clarity. No one, apart from her husband and a few associates, was ever shown any of this material, nor did AR intend to publish it. Obviously, therefore, nothing in the book may be taken as definitive of her ideas. On the contrary, most of these preliminary formulations were dropped, and a few were even contradicted, in her published works. In several cases, though hardly in all, the editor points out such discrepancies.

“The art of writing,” AR wrote in a November 1944 note, “is the art of doing what you think you’re doing. This is not as simple as it sounds. It implies a very difficult undertaking: the necessity to think. And it implies the requirement to think out three separate, very hard problems: What is it you want to say? How are you going to say it? Have you really said it?” It was to answer these questions that most of the
Journals
was written. In other words, the notes are nothing more than AR preparing herself to write by thinking aloud on paper—in random snatches, as and when she sought to clarify a point—without outline, structure, continuous theme, or editorial polish.

Despite its unedited character, however, the Journals is a treat to read, because it is the raw evidence of AR’s continuous growth across fifty years—her growth both as a philosopher and as an artist.

One can see her growth as a philosopher in two ways: in her interests and in her ideas, i.e., in regard both to depth and to truth.

AR’s mind moved systematically from politics (as a youth) to ethics (in her thirties and forties) to epistemology and metaphysics (in her fifties and later). This progression is not a mere change of interest, but a true organic development: the earlier stages increasingly exhibit the maturity of what is to come, which in turn always remains faithful in principle to its youthful origins. One great pleasure in reading the book is to see hints of later discoveries mentioned at first casually, even parenthetically. For instance, if you read AR’s first philosophic musings with an eye to
Atlas Shrugged,
you will observe how much more you can see in her words now, thanks to her, than she herself could see at the time. Her distinctive ideas were present from her start as a thinker; they were implicit in her fundamental approach at least from the age of twelve. It was only a matter of time and logic until she was able to identify them explicitly.

The best evidence of AR’s increasing depth is her unpublished manuscript
The Moral Basis of Individualism.
It is there that we see her evolution from
The Fountainhead’s
stress on independence to
Atlas Shrugged’s
recognition that the basic virtue is rationality, of which independence is but an aspect. We also see her taking the historic step from ethics to the base of philosophy. Traditionally, philosophers started their books on ethics by asking: What is the proper moral code? AR started there, too—until something occurred to her one day in mid-sentence: “Chapter 1 should
begin
by stating the [moral] axiom. Then define man’s nature. Then ask
[these two words are deleted] Or
—begin by asking whether a moral code is necessary? Prove that it is—for a rational being. What is the rational? That which is true to facts....” In regard to this passage I am tempted to paraphrase the mystics: To those who understand, no explanation is necessary; to those who do not, read Galt’s speech.

In regard to the content of her ideas, AR also underwent an organic development as, step by step, she gained clarity about the full implications of her fundamental premises.

AR’s first notes reveal an influence of Nietzsche, in the form of droplets of subjectivism, and of the idea that the heroes among men are innately great, as against the inherently corrupt masses, who deserve only bitterness and domination from their superiors. None of this is stated as a connected position, but such ideas do show up here and there.

It is instructive to watch these droplets—every one of them—evaporate without residue, as AR’s own principles emerge into the sunshine of explicit statement; it is a perfect example of science (reason) functioning as a self-corrective. After she comes to define “reason,” subjectivism vanishes; after her analysis of individual rights, “domination” is gone; after she grasps the nature of volition, she says no more about “innate” stature.