The Journals of Ayn Rand (117 page)

If any school of morality considers morality a
social,
not an individual, matter—i.e., a code for the relation of man to man, and not for man’s own conduct in regard to himself—then, of course, it will necessarily be a collectivist [theory] and it will not work. This is true of any religious morality or of any attempt at a “social” morality, like communism.

Both above schools of “morality” have this in common: that they begin by placing the standard of their code of values outside of man: God is the standard in one case, “society” in the other. But since
man
is the
entity,
the unit under discussion for whom the code of morality is being proposed, the proper standard of values has to begin with
him.

Most blatantly obvious, in theory and in observable practice, is the fact that man’s moral code has to apply primarily to his own private conduct in relation to himself and his life—and that only on the basis of the right code toward himself will he or can he observe any sort of moral code toward others. Conventionally, it is thought that a man on a desert island needs no moral code.
That
is where he would need it the most. The proper code, of course, is:
rational control
of himself and his actions, a rational view of reality (identifying facts for what they are, to the best of his knowledge and capacity,
being true to truth),
the rational choice of his purpose and the action to achieve it.

Conventionally, both the religious and the social schools of morality make it appear that moral behavior is an obligation which man owes to others, but not to himself—that he has no
selfish interest
in morality—in fact, that his selfish interests are actually opposed to his moral code, but he must observe it as a sacrifice for and to others. Thus he is a sacrificial animal to God or to society—sacrifice, suffering, renunciation of happiness on earth are made [the essence] of his moral code. He must
live for
God, or society, or humanity, or the poor, or whatever; he is always taken as a means to some end—but he is never taken as an end in himself.

But we can see all around us that the men who are immoral toward others are first of all and more profoundly immoral toward themselves. The criminal or fraud or con-man is the irresponsible man who exists without a purpose, wastes his life and hurts himself more than he harms others. The liar is not “honest with himself, but dishonest with others”—he does not fake reality for others, while having a clear, honest grasp of it for himself;
he
is the one who fakes reality for himself, in his own mind, much more dreadfully and disastrously than he can ever fake it for others;
he
is the man who has renounced the rational identification of facts, the “being true to truth”—
he
is the neurotic full of complexes and in dread of ever facing reality.

Incidentally, if morality
were
merely a social matter, a code for the relation of man to man, then a plausible case could be made for taking “society” (or the collective) as the basis of moral values, for letting “society” choose the terms of the code, for the precept that “the good is whatever is good for society,” or for the idea that society itself needs no moral code—that the majority may do anything it pleases, since it physically
can
do it—that whatever the majority decrees,
that
is moral.

A good example here as to
why
a society or a man needs a moral code is the difference between what a man
can
do or
may
do. A man
can
cut his own throat—but he
may not
do it, if his purpose is to live. Society
can
become collectivist and destroy itself—but it
may not
do it, if its purpose is to exist, or prosper, or achieve happiness for
any
of its members. (Here again—the relation of morality and purpose is clear.)

Incidentally, it is debatable whether a majority
can
do anything it pleases, even in the crudest physical terms. Those who think it, think simply of a wild mob overrunning an individual or a small, opposing minority—simply in terms of physical numbers and physical force. But even this is not true: one man with a machine gun can defeat a mob. This is an example of “force” versus “mind and force.” Man
cannot do anything
by sheer physical force—his muscles have to be guided by his mind, his mind has to set the purpose of his actions—and
right there
is the illustration of why a majority is actually
helpless
as such, if its physical numbers are the only criterion of its strength. If it’s asked: but what about a numerical majority with a vicious leader or with a vicious idea?—then the answer is: on those terms, the question of the
mind
is involved, and then the man with the right idea will win, regardless of numbers; he will win, even if his following is much smaller than that of the evil leader—and he will also win even in the minds of the enemy’s following, to the extent of their intelligence.

It is Francisco who tells Rearden what people’s attitude on sex is: the quest for self-esteem, when sex should be an expression of self-esteem.

This is the scene when, after their unfinished conversation at the mills, Rearden comes to Francisco’s suite at the Wayne-Falkland. Rearden asks how a man of Francisco’s intelligence can find any sort of satisfaction in the life of a playboy, in running after countless cheap women who have nothing but beauty. Francisco tells him that he has never touched any of those women—why the women keep up the pretense—and that he has loved only one woman in his life and still loves her.

 

 

The essence of consciousness is identification. Our senses give us information about physical reality. Our mind grasps it, organizes it, identifies it, establishes conceptions—
ideas.
Our ideas about reality establish our emotions, desires, purposes, motives. The “spiritual” duty of our mind is to identify our ideas and all their consequences, all the functions and aspects of our consciousness as strictly as we identify the facts of physical reality. Here, too, our first and foremost (and probably only) duty is: non-contradictory identification.
This
establishes our moral character as a person—this is probably the whole essence of morality. (“A broken person is one who dares not admit to himself the nature of what he is doing.”)

Since existence
cannot
be contradictory, this rule of consciousness is the rule of morality—the life-serving principle. A
contradiction,
being impossible, has to lead to destruction—therefore, a philosophy containing paradoxes (particularly the intentional, conscious acceptance of paradoxes) has to have destruction as its ultimate result. (This is an important clue for the distinction between the “life” and “death” philosophies.)

To think over in this connection:
the example of the certainty of a sleep-walker. Define the exact relation of
how
to set your abstractions in such a way that the concrete action follows
automatically
and
correctly.
This is both for general thinking and particularly for
the process of writing.

 

 

There are only two possible societies: where men work for reward or where men work from
fear—the incentive of joy or the incentive of suffering.
These are basic, because man has, essentially, only the two sensations: pleasure and pain. Now, which of these two societies do you want?

If man is to work, not for
his own
pleasure, but for the pleasure of others, then others have to take care of him, of providing
his
pleasure. Then man in relation to his brothers is simultaneously a sucker and a beggar. Is
that
what you consider good? Is that the rule of a moral society?
That
—as against a society where the relationship of men is that of self-respecting, self-supporting, responsible equals.

Money is the tool of intelligence and of freedom. It requires
judgment,
in order to be produced and to be spent. When a man pays you in money, he leaves to you the choice of how to spend it.
You
are the judge of what you want to get in exchange for your effort. What would you prefer—that your employer decide what you should have and what he will give you?

The men who hate their work “because they have to work for money” are immoral. The fault is theirs—they are the kind who hate work or the kind who want others to support them in a work for which those others get nothing.

 

 

Man exists for his own happiness; he is an end in himself and does not exist for the sake of others.

If any man is asked to sacrifice himself for others, it means that he has something of value, some virtue, which they lack. Therefore, it means that the worthless is given a claim of priority over the valuable, the unvirtuous over the virtuous, the miserable over the happy. It means—whatever the standard of values, since it is only a
value
that can be sacrinced—that the good must be sacrificed to the evil.

Men of virtue, do you value your virtues as little as that? Are you willing to make them serve, feed and preserve those who are evil? Are you willing to support your own enemies?
You
are your own destroyers.

If the inferiors base their entire claim on the fact that they need the superior—then how can they enforce their claim and their exploitation, unless it’s the superior who permits it, accepts it, and works for his own destruction? It is the superior who makes possible his own torture, enslavement, exploitation, and ruin.

If they need
you,
while you do not need them—it is
you
who must dictate the terms. (There is no question of sacrifice between equals, or between any two men who have something to offer to each other; there is only a trade—a just, honorable exchange. Whenever sacrifice is [demanded], it means that one party wants something from the other but has nothing to offer in return.)

The great, primary error of the superior men has been the fact that they have accepted the
morality
of their own exploiters.

What morality is and why it is the cardinal need of man’s existence: man is a being of free will, he has to survive by conscious choice and effort, he has to choose his purpose and the means to achieve it. The choice of the means depends on the purpose, and the choice of the purpose depends on his code of values. A being of free will cannot choose, act, or exist without a standard of values. His standard must be
himself-man’s nature.
His basic, primary, essential purpose must be to live. He can live only in the manner proper to his nature—proper to man. He must understand his nature, define it—and
that
will give him his standard of values.

Man’s essence and sole means of survival is his mind—his capacity to think—his rational [faculty]. Any departure from it or denial of it is a destruction of his consciousness. A morality or standard of values not based on his reason is impossible for him to practice and can lead only to his destruction. He cannot live against and in contradiction to his consciousness. He cannot be good, if the “good” is that which is contrary to his nature, that which is impossible to him. Nor can he exist if he accepts himself as essentially evil: then his life, too, is evil—and he can have no desire to struggle for the continuation of the evil existence of an evil being. It is thus that he is set against himself.

The cardinal crime in morality has been the placing of the standard of values outside and beyond man. This was done by chopping man into two contradictory parts, set to war against each other: body and soul. Then the standard of values was placed in the alleged realm of this alleged soul, as an enemy of the realm of his body. This left man’s existence on earth without any morality; man had no code of values for this earth; in fact, to exist at all, he had to be immoral.