The Journals of Ayn Rand (9 page)

His ideas are the means for “equality,” for bringing higher men down to his level. His thinking is muddy enough to [demand] an absolute obedience to these ideas from others, but not from himself. He isn’t above having filthy little love affairs, accepting money when doing so is quite safe although not quite clean, and forgiving in his “friends” the sins for which he would destroy an “enemy” (i.e., an “outsider”).

He is tall and rather flabby, although he gives the impression of being thin. Has a narrow, lined, yellowish face with the proud, austere expression of a saint. He has little, damp, lusty eyes and the thin, dry lips of a cold hypocrite. He has white hands with short, fat fingers and shapeless fingernails that are more wide than long. Likes to wear rings. Has thin, straight hair which is beginning to gray, with a bald spot showing rosy and soft like the flesh of a baby. He has a deep, slow, dignified voice and a hee-hee-ing, indecent, insincere laugh.

He is a very prominent figure. Especially popular among the semi-literate lower classes, the ones that are always ready to fall for religious preaching. To some, he is a beloved and respected “father”; others are rather indifferent themselves, but will not tolerate any disrespect or disbelief of him and are always ready to defend him furiously against anyone doubting his authority. The business magnates and such despise him and feel an instinctive disgust toward him, but they have to tolerate and stay on good terms with him for fear of his dark, “backstage” power.

He hates all successful people. A successful man, in any line, is his personal enemy. He rejoices at every failure and at the fall of every idol.

(The model for the pastor: the pastor of the Ku Klux Klan that I read about. The movie censors. All “reformers.” An endless list of “little street‘ers” that I will note down as they come.)

 

[Other Characters]

A fat woman that has made her immense fortune by having bad houses
[houses of prostitution].
An influential, respectable citizen. Very proudly conscious of her power. Ambitious to get or buy everything she wants. Convinced that there is nothing so high that she cannot get it. She marries a brilliant, aristocratic, divinely handsome young man, Eric “Goldenlocks.” Marries him because she “can afford to have a pretty boy in her bed” if she wants one.

Eric is poor, ambitious, conceited and not very strong. He just sells himself, marrying her for her money, knowing all about her and the source of her fortune. He is tall, with blue eyes, golden hair and all the Siegfried like, fresh, sparkling beauty of a snow-covered Scandinavian mountain peak on a sunny morning. He marries the woman. We see him later, with a heavy, flabby, ghastly white face, red eyelids, shiny nose, sagging double-chin, unkempt hair, muddled, expressionless eyes and the reputation of a chronic drunkard.

He had been in love, before his marriage, with a charming, brilliant girl from an old family, now poor and barely keeping up a decent appearance to support the dignity of their name. His marriage to the woman is a terrible blow to the girl. A middle-aged nouveau riche, a heavy, common brute, had been courting her in his ambition to possess something he felt to be so above him, a woman of the real aristocracy. She marries him now—in despair. We see her later, overdressed in an expensive and tasteless way, having for a lover a cheap, notorious “heartbreaker.” A little detail: before all this, a young college girl—romantic, sensitive, but not very attractive—has committed suicide over her hopeless love for the handsome Eric “Goldenlocks.”

A genius gone wrong. A handsome, brilliant young actor with a fine mind and a beautiful soul. Famous and successful, but gone wrong in that he is genuinely unhappy; his life is empty of desires or interests; he is cynical, tired, disgusted with everything—inside. Outside—he leads a wild life full of vice. He is not clear to himself, there is a continual chaos in his mind, regarding himself and the world. He does not know what he lives for or why he lives. He does not
care
—in an immense sense. An example of a fine frame that the little street has filled with its rotten content. Instinctively, he does not accept [the little street’s view of life], he revolts against it—but he has no other. And it is too late for another. He shows how empty the little street’s ideals are and what a wreck they make of an exceptional being. For they can’t fill such a soul and they do not permit the [ideals] that could fill it. He is utterly cynical and does not believe in anything. He could not accept the little street’s beliefs; they only killed in him all belief in believing.

The boy of the story shows how the little street wrecks an existing exceptional being. The actor shows how it wrecks such a being before he develops. The boy is an exceptional nature, and he is wrecked physically. The actor isn‘t, but could have been, and he is wrecked spiritually. The boy is a wonderful character, in spite of everything. The actor is not, but shows signs of what he might have been. The boy has his ego, his pride, his strength. The actor hasn’t anything. He does not even respect himself. He is despicable sometimes, and does not care. He is as empty of any high interest or feelings as a human being can be.

A “philosophical” prostitute. A creature that lives for one thing only and does not want to see anything else. Perfectly satisfied and proud of herself. She looks at things straight, realizes her power and is proud. The female representative of the little street—to match with the pastor. Except that she is more honest than the pastor. She sees the world as it is and laughs at all the high words and ideals. She knows their worth. She has no “high ideals.” She is openly rotten and satisfied with it, for the world is rotten and she has a right to say it. She is the voice of the little street when she says: that she is the real queen of life; that “decent” women have to share their men with her and be satisfied with what she leaves; that men’s respect for their “respectable” women isn’t worth a penny; that there is no man too high for her bed; that nothing is higher for men than what she gives them; and so on. She is a filthy creature who spits on all the high ideals of humanity and has
a
right to do it. For she does not lie. She only looks at things as they are and states the facts that the “decent people” are hypocritical enough to overlook and tolerate.

Sex filth.
The real horror (and here I must gather all my strength to show it as strongly as possible) of respectable men having love affairs with the lowest kind of female filth. Show that a great man can’t be great if he associates (and associates in such a way!) with women he himself despises, that he is despicable himself if he does it. Show great men and young, promising boys with the disgraceful slime they make “love” to. All the things which they tolerate, which they allow themselves, thinking that they still have a right to keep their self-respect.

The hypocrisy of what men call love. A dull, lukewarm feeling of domestic-animal attachment and “respect” for their wives, not affected by affairs with “unrespectable” women.

The wives who tolerate their husbands’ unfaithfulness and are unfaithful themselves. Perfectly satisfied with such a marriage.

Mothers who approve of their sons’ vices and even help them in [such a course].

Influential, powerful men and the prostitutes who are their mistresses and who through these men get power over respectable people.

White-slavers.

 

Associations. The human herds. All the gatherings of average humanity which have but one aim: to ruin all individuals and individuality, to put “we” instead of “I” everywhere, to have a herd of submissive insiders against everyone outside who “does not belong,” everyone who has the courage and conscience to walk alone. The tyranny of number, of the multitude, of the average. Communism already established—unofficially.

 

Women ’s clubs.
The poisonous hypocrisy of a secret revenge given power and influence. The revenge of failed mediocrities that glorify “virtue” because they have no chance to [engage in vice]. Sour old maids—not only physically, but spiritually as well. Women who failed in their private lives given the power to dictate an opinion and exercise an influence over the lives of others. Inferiors, speaking as superiors to society. Wrecks themselves—trying to wreck other lives.

 

Prominent, “respectable ” citizens.
The intimate details of how they [rose]. Unpunished crooks who commit crimes against “society” and then furiously defend the rights of society against others. “Successful” men and what makes their success. The art of boot-licking. Patriots and their ferocious intolerance. Men killed and crippled for “their country.” And
who
and
what
is that country? Show the “great” men—in business, politics, art—and how small they are when one looks closely.

 

Home life.
The stupid idealization of it, that tries to make it the highest ideal and aim for everybody. The dull, petty, purposeless existence that it is. The ridiculous smallness of it. Show young, promising people, full of life, and what they become with their “families.” The domestic-animal, eat-drink-and-sleep existence. The chewing-cow-in-the-sun contentment. The heavy, dumb, jail-like monotony of that life, day by day.
[Note AR’s
rejection of both the
“family values” of
conservatives
and
(earlier) the
“feminism” advocated by
many liberals.]

 

Narcotic-fiends.
Those who buy it—and those who sell it, making fortunes [while remaining] uncaught and unpunished.

I leave these pages empty to be filled with [more descriptions of] those who constitute “humanity” and make up our great civilization, those for whom we are expected to live.

They are the ones who judge the boy when he commits his crime against society.

I must remember that I do not want to invent or exaggerate anything in this story. Everything must be taken from life. I do not want it to be my furious protest against humanity—made up in my imagination. It has to be true, just life as it is, which is far worse than I could ever invent. The only thing I can do in the story is to put it all together, to show the whole, to bring things a little closer to each other, allowing people to see the close relation between the “good” and the horror of their lives.

The first thing that impresses me about the case is the ferocious rage of the
whole
society against
one
man. No matter what the man did, there is always something loathsome in the “virtuous” indignation and mass-hatred of the “majority.” One always feels the stuffy, bloodthirsty emotion of a mob in any great public feeling of a large number of humans. It is repulsive to see all those beings with worse sins and crimes in their own lives, virtuously condemning a criminal, proud and secure in their number, yelling furiously in defense of society.

This is not just the case of a terrible crime. It is not the crime alone that has raised that fury of public hatred. It is the case of a daring challenge to society. It is the fact that a crime has been committed by one man, alone; that this man knew it was against all laws of humanity and intended it that way; that he does not want to recognize it as a crime and that he feels superior to all. It is the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul.

A mob’s feeling of omnipotence is its most jealously guarded possession and therefore a dangerous thing to wound. The mob can forgive any insult or crime except one: [the act of] challenging its ultimate power. It can forgive a criminal who erred, but who is just one of itself, i.e., has the same soul and ideas and bends to the same gods. But to see a man who has freed himself from it entirely, who has nothing in common with it, a man who does not need it and who openly disdains it—this is the one crime a mob can never forgive.

It seems to me that the mob is more jealous to possess a man’s soul than his body. It is the spiritual despotism that is so dear to it. It does not care whether it [physically] possesses a man, as long as the man acknowledges to himself that he belongs to it. It cannot stand to see a man who does not belong and knows it. That tyrannical monster, the mob, feels the helpless fury of impotence in the presence of the one thing beyond its power, that it cannot conquer, the only thing that counts—a man’s own soul and consciousness. And when the mob sees one of these rare, free, clear spirits, over which it has no control—then we have the [spectacle] of a roaring, passionate public hatred.

Worse crimes than this have been committed. Not one has ever raised such furious indignation. Why? Because of the man who committed the crime and not because of the crime he has committed. Because of Hickman’s brazenly challenging attitude.