The Journals of Ayn Rand (21 page)

The non-creative “second-hand” man par excellence. The critic, expressing and molding the voice of public opinion; the average man condensed, representing the average man’s qualities plus the peculiar qualities which make him the natural leader of average men.

Theme-song: a vicious, ingrown vanity coupled with an
insane will to power
, a lust for superiority that can be expressed
only through others
, whom, therefore, he has to dominate; a natural inferiority complex that subconsciously leads to [the desire to] bring everything down into inferiority. A tremendous ego—without content. No reasons for his egotism—“I am I,” that’s all, without concern for what this “I” really is.

Important trait to emphasize as a social implication: this type is the one who, once in a position of power, subconsciously, but with an unerring instinct, surrounds himself with his moral and intellectual equals, works to fill other positions of power with his own kind, closing all doors he can to genuine talent and superiority, since this last would be too great a threat for him. None of it is conscious—just an innate instinct of self-preservation.

Here is the place to emphasize that genuinely superior beings are too individualistic [in social matters], in the sense that they achieve their own positions and are not concerned with the propagation and advancement of their own kind. It is only the inferior men that have collective instincts—because they need them. But since the superior men live in society, they have to organize for their own protection—a kind of class brotherhood of talent—if they are to survive at all. The only kind of “unselfishness” permissible to the great man is unselfishness to the cause of that superior form of living which he represents, and which has to be protected in the persons of other individuals like him. (Social instinct as the weapon and protection of the inferior.)

Toohey’s physical appearance: medium height, rather on the shortish side, skinny, anemic, concave-chested, spindly, slightly bow-legged, ridiculous and offensive in a bathing suit. A glaring lack of vitality—compensated, so he thinks, by his intellectual achievements. Long, narrow face, slightly receding chin, protruding upper teeth, in a sharp, circular, rodent fashion—not too good a set of teeth, nor too clean. Narrow, sharp black eyes, set close together, bright and “intellectual” between slightly puffed, heavy lids. A Hitler-like small black mustache—carefully trimmed. Luxurious hair—black, lustrous and faintly suggesting a wave—thoroughly well groomed, leaving just the faintest doubt between natural carelessness or very deliberate, retouched, marcelled picturesqueness. Not a mane, but somehow suggesting a mane—seeming too large for his light frame, making him vaguely top-heavy—more in impression than in fact. Thin, expressive hands and small feet, with a mincing, uncertain, unsteady, nervous walk.

He has a magnificent voice—a true achievement. Deep, low, well-modulated, clear, precise and expressive. Perhaps a little offensive to some people, because of its smug perfection—but to a very few people. He has made a thorough study of voice-culture, but does not like to mention it—prefers to let people think it is natural. Shrugs deprecatingly when complimented on his voice, but never misses or forgets the compliments.

Went into “intellectualism” in a big way. Two reasons: first, a subconscious revenge for his obvious physical inferiority, a means to a power his body could never give him; second (and primary), a cunning perception that only mental control over others is true control, that if he can rule them mentally he is indeed their total ruler. His vanity is not passive like that of Peter, who is concerned with other people only as mirrors for his vanity; Toohey is very much concerned with other people in the sense of an overwhelming desire to dominate them. This is the lust for power, but it is a “second-hand” power. It is motivated not by some deep conviction of his own to be imposed upon others, who would thus be secondary to him and his conviction, but by subconsciously adopting the convictions of others in order to rule them and thus acquire his own grandeur through the number of people he dominates, deriving his self-satisfaction from them. They are actually the prime factor and he a “second-hand” creature devoid of all personal significance but that given to him by others.

In contrast to Peter, Toohey does believe strongly and earnestly in ideals and convictions, but they must be the ideals he has accepted. He is intolerant, impatient and sarcastic to all intellectual opposition. He believes in “principles,” realizing subconsciously that a strict adherence to a set of principles delivers men into his hands when he is the chief proponent of these principles. He is the loud defender of the “intellect,” of “brain over brawn” or “mind over matter.” Such words as “culture,” “civilization,” “progress,” “the spiritual heritage of centuries,” “ethics,” “esthetics,” and “philosophy” are his favorites, to the point where he has become convinced that he is their living embodiment.

Now as to his convictions. [As a consequence of] his basic lust for power—a “second-hand” power not expressed in any concrete ideal of his own—his convictions are all those which are expedient to his attainment of such power. He has realized ahead of many others the tremendous power of the masses, which, for the first time, are acquiring real significance in all (even the intellectual) aspects of life. In this sense, he is the man of the century, the genius of modern democracy in its worst meaning.

The first cornerstone of his convictions is
equality
—his greatest passion. This includes the idea that, as two-legged human creatures, all possess certain intrinsic value by the mere fact of having been born in the shape of men, not apes. Any concrete, mental content inside the human shape does not matter. A great brain or a great talent or a magnificent character are of no importance as compared to that intrinsic value all possess as
men
—whatever that may be. He is never clear on what that may be and rather annoyed when the question is raised. He avoids it by running to meet it and by silencing the issue with a great deal of talk. He talks of the “human spirit,” the “spark of God in all of us,” the “man created in God’s own image,” the “best in the worst of us,” etc.

His talk is on a grand scale, staggering, magnificent, its bromides well-hidden under the latest scientific terms, the whole worked out brilliantly on the formula of saying things that sound profound until one stops to think of what exactly they mean and finds that they mean nothing. Inasmuch as beliefs are important to him only as a means to an end, and that is the extent of his belief in beliefs, he is not bothered by his inconsistencies, by the vagueness and illogic of his convictions. They are efficient and effective to secure the ends he is seeking. They work—and that is all they’re for.

Once the equality of men is established, the advantages to his type are obvious. It discredits the superior type of man whom he hates, dreads and envies. It minimizes, through a metaphysical, “humanitarian” hocus-pocus, the qualities and virtues which the superior type possesses and which he lacks. It denies superiority and subordinates it to that vague “humanness” which he can claim along with everyone else. But, mainly, it assures him of superiority—his brand of it. Deeply and subconsciously he knows that he is a second-rater and a representative of the average. That [knowledge], aided by a certain amount of brains, puts him in the category of “upper-class average”; but he is devoid of all individuality and creative power, which dooms him hopelessly to the average (in other words, he is a plain average man spiritually, but slightly above the mob mentally, in the facile sense of cunning, not wisdom). [Hence] he becomes the true representative, leader and condensation of the average. Once the [men at the top] are removed or discredited, he is the top. As the best representative of the masses, he can attain the prominence, distinction and power [which would be] impossible to him on his own personal merits. In an individualistic society, where men have to stand or fall by what they really are in themselves, where they are valued as single men and by no other standard—he is nothing. In a collective mass society, where quantity stands above quality (another unreal, “second-hand” substitution)—he is everything. Hence his profound urge toward equality and collectivism, or his “social conscience,” as he calls it.

This “social conscience” is an outstanding, dominant trait in him. He has an instinctive interest in everything concerning others. He is the born spiritual meddler, reformer, and “social worker.” Societies, clubs, lodges, organizations of any kind attract him irresistibly. His is not the cruder interest of Peter, who joins for what he can get out of it for himself. Toohey joins to take an active part, for what
he
can do to others. In everything he joins he soon becomes the leading voice and
the
influence. He is no rank-and-file member, ever; he is always
on
the committee or the board of directors. He is not after advancing his own career; he is after molding the lives of others, which is his career. (The monstrosity of “selfless” egotism.) One will always find him on the stationery of “Slum Clearance Leagues,” “Mass Education Leagues,” “Modern Education Leagues,” “Recreation for the Poor Leagues,” “Social Foundation Leagues,” and prize-giving “Art Leagues.”

Toohey is a “humanitarian” and a “radical.” He is a humanitarian because his great love for and eternal preoccupation with humanity gives him the standing and prestige he does not possess as a man; it fills the void [caused by a lack] of all individual creativity, the void in a man who has nothing to offer in himself, only in, through and for others. (A “second-hand” man par excellence. Only those who have nothing in themselves are too concerned with others.) He is a radical because the theory of the triumphant, totalitarian mass is still a new one in the world, particularly in its spiritual implications and sources, which he realizes full-well, but never mentions explicitly. Up to the twentieth century and Soviet Russia, the world [had offered some degree] of recognition for individual achievement, recognition of leaders and exceptions as opposed to the masses; the trend of “liberalism” and the idea of “freedom” was freedom for “a man” and the fight for the individual rights of “a man.” When humanity achieved that freedom after the Industrial Revolution, or came as near to freedom and general equality before the law as it had ever come, one thing became apparent to the deluded idealists who, in fighting for the “rights of man,” included
all
men, presumed all men to be equal, or at least potentially equal given equal opportunities. Whether under modern capitalism the best men always won (and undoubtedly they often did not) was not as important as the fact that capitalistic democracy showed plainly that there is a best. And that the best [among men] are opposed to the rest of humanity.

The liberals and humanitarians are now faced with a choice: either admit that there are differences among men more profound and irrefutable than those of money or aristocratic birth, and therefore fight for the rights and the freedom of the
best
among men, rights and freedom which the average men do not want, do not understand and cannot use or protect, and stop the damnable preoccupation with the “poor” as such, the poor who have no distinction beyond their poverty; or—deny these ideals and, keeping only the philosophical zeal for all humanity, bring mankind down to the level of the masses, deny to the few the rights which endanger the masses, benefit the masses by destroying their eternal enemy—the exceptional man, and instead of fighting for the individual rights which have hitherto been known as “human” rights, reverse the process, fight
against
these rights, for these rights are the enemy, not the liberation of the masses. [
By “masses” AR refers here to second-handers who wish to live by exploiting better men
.
For evidence of her respect for honest men of average ability, see the characters of Mike Donnigan in The Fountainhead and Eddie Willers in Atlas
Shrugged.]

Communism, the Soviet variety particularly, is
not
merely an economic theory. It does not demand economic equality and security in order to set each individual free to rise as he chooses. Communism is, above all, a spiritual theory which denies the individual,
not merely as an economic power
, but in every respect. It demands spiritual subordination to the mass in every way conceivable—economic, intellectual, artistic; it allows individuals to rise only
as servants of the masses
, only as mouthpieces for the great average. It places Ellsworth Monkton Toohey at the top of the human pyramid.

Hence, Toohey’s natural “radicalism.” In it, he is subtler, deeper and more consistent than many a modem communist. If some communists come to a spiritual collectivism somewhat reluctantly, as a necessity for achieving economic collectivism, Toohey reverses the process, much more logically. He embraces spiritual collectivism first; economic collectivism is only a means to that ultimate end.