An absurd (?) implication of the impotence of evil

[System Builder 0]

I am *certain* that I read somewhere that Ayn Rand said/wrote something to the effect that she once wondered whether the perpetrator of an evil, or the victim who let it be done to him without resisting, was worse. And she then said (roughly) - "I now know that the victim who lets it be done to him is worse." I am certain that Ayn Rand said/wrote something to that effect. And it seems to "fit". Ayn Rand was of course very critical of selflessness, and the choice not to fight for one´s values is profoundly selfless.

I did some quick checking in the Ayn Rand Lexicon (topics "Evil" and "Appeasement") and the Objectivism Research CD ROM ("which is worse" and "used to wonder"). I wonder if any of those excerpts are what Henrik is referring to.

[Henrik Unné 0]

I am *certain* that I read somewhere that Ayn Rand said/wrote something to the effect that she once wondered whether the perpetrator of an evil, or the victim who let it be done to him without resisting, was worse. And she then said (roughly) - "I now know that the victim who lets it be done to him is worse." I am certain that Ayn Rand said/wrote something to that effect. And it seems to "fit". Ayn Rand was of course very critical of selflessness, and the choice not to fight for one´s values is profoundly selfless.

I did some quick checking in the Ayn Rand Lexicon (topics "Evil" and "Appeasement") and the Objectivism Research CD ROM ("which is worse" and "used to wonder"). I wonder if any of those excerpts are what Henrik is referring to.

Yes, I think that I remember that Ayn Rand said on some occassion that she used to wonder, when she was young, who was worse, the person who wronged someone, or the person who just let himself be wronged without resistance or protest, and Ayn Rand continued - "I now know that the latter are worse". I do not have the Objectivism Research CD ROM, so I cannot look up the exact quote.

[bborg 0]

Without a supporting argument, it doesn't matter whether she said it or not.

[Henrik Unné 0]

Without a supporting argument, it doesn't matter whether she said it or not.

I am not attempting to argue from ad verecundiam, that if Ayn Rand said it, it must be true.

[System Builder 0]

I found the passage that Henrik is referring to, or at least my own recollection of a passage that matches Henrik's description. It turns out that I needed to search on "wondered" rather than "used to wonder."

Ayn Rand was describing a development in her own thinking about appeasement that occurred while she was an adolescent, still living in Russia. By the time she began writing Atlas Shrugged, her views on appeasement were already well formed.

What makes passages by Ayn Rand so important and valuable is not just her stated conclusions, but also her underlying reasons for reaching those conclusions. She was always very good about explaining her reasons as well as her conclusions, and her reasons were always highly reality-based and integrated. Knowing where, when and especially why Ayn Rand expressed her conclusions allows one to examine the reasons for the conclusions. In Ayn Rand's case, understanding her reasons nearly always proves to be a highly instructive learning experience.

I was in my early teens during the Russian civil war.... I wondered, even in those years, which is morally worse: evil -- or the appeasement of evil, the cowardly evasion that leaves an evil unnamed, unanswered and unchallenged. I was inclined to think that the second is worse, because it makes the first posible. I am certain of it today. But in the years of my adolescence, I did not know how rare a virtue intellectual integrity (i.e., the non-evasion of reality) actually is.

Ayn Rand did not look out at an audience of businessmen, a great many of whom appease their destroyers, and say to them: you are more evil than your destroyers. Rather, she said to such businessmen: "look at your moral code, realize that you have a choice about what moral code to adopt and support, then stop endorsing altruism and instead follow a code of rationality and individualism. Cast off your destroyers once and for all." A well known, notorious political philosopher is associated with the exhortation, "Workers of the world, unite!" Ayn Rand's view is: "men of the mind, stop supporting your destroyers!" She meant it morally as well as materially. It was a key aspect of the basic theme of Atlas Shrugged, and she repeated it often, all the way to the end of her days in the last public lecture she ever gave, "The Sanction of the Victims" (1981), VOR Chap. 15.

[Henrik Unné 0]

I found the passage that Henrik is referring to, or at least my own recollection of a passage that matches Henrik's description. It turns out that I needed to search on "wondered" rather than "used to wonder."

Ayn Rand was describing a development in her own thinking about appeasement that occurred while she was an adolescent, still living in Russia. By the time she began writing Atlas Shrugged, her views on appeasement were already well formed.

What makes passages by Ayn Rand so important and valuable is not just her stated conclusions, but also her underlying reasons for reaching those conclusions. She was always very good about explaining her reasons as well as her conclusions, and her reasons were always highly reality-based and integrated. Knowing where, when and especially why Ayn Rand expressed her conclusions allows one to examine the reasons for the conclusions. In Ayn Rand's case, understanding her reasons nearly always proves to be a highly instructive learning experience.

I was in my early teens during the Russian civil war.... I wondered, even in those years, which is morally worse: evil -- or the appeasement of evil, the cowardly evasion that leaves an evil unnamed, unanswered and unchallenged. I was inclined to think that the second is worse, because it makes the first posible. I am certain of it today. But in the years of my adolescence, I did not know how rare a virtue intellectual integrity (i.e., the non-evasion of reality) actually is.

Ayn Rand did not look out at an audience of businessmen, a great many of whom appease their destroyers, and say to them: you are more evil than your destroyers. Rather, she said to such businessmen: "look at your moral code, realize that you have a choice about what moral code to adopt and support, then stop endorsing altruism and instead follow a code of rationality and individualism. Cast off your destroyers once and for all." A well known, notorious political philosopher is associated with the exhortation, "Workers of the world, unite!" Ayn Rand's view is: "men of the mind, stop supporting your destroyers!" She meant it morally as well as materially. It was a key aspect of the basic theme of Atlas Shrugged, and she repeated it often, all the way to the end of her days in the last public lecture she ever gave, "The Sanction of the Victims" (1981), VOR Chap. 15.

Yes, that passage about appeasement is the one that I recalled. I will have to purchase a copy of the Research CD ROM one day, when I can afford it.

As to the last point that you make, SystemBuilder, I agree that it is still worse when the men of the mind support their own destroyers, but it is very bad also when the nonintellectual Joe Sixpacks do it. The sacrifice entailed by non-thinking is so gratuitous. They throw away their lives for the "pleasure" of not being (very) conscious, in other words for nothingness.

[System Builder 0]

I agree that it is still worse when the men of the mind support their own destroyers, but it is very bad also when the nonintellectual Joe Sixpacks do it. The sacrifice entailed by non-thinking is so gratuitous. They throw away their lives for the "pleasure" of not being (very) conscious, in other words for nothingness.

Do the "Joe Sixpacks" matter very much in grand scale historical trends? Are they the prime movers of long-term trends? If not, what is the purpose of dwelling on them longer than a moment or two? Joe Sixpack probably just follows the whims of whatever "group" or "network" he seeks to affiliate and align with, and all the various groups and networks, in turn, are most influenced by professional intellectuals (perhaps like Toohey in The Fountainhead, or perhaps better). Why not focus, then, on the producers and intellectuals, the men of the mind? Why not concentrate any efforts to bring about fundamental cultural reform on bringing the essential message to them, as Ayn Rand did? To neutralize bad intellectuals, the world needs good intellectuals.

Here is a passage by Ayn Rand that I have always found particularly memorable and moving in this regard.

It does not matter that only a few in each generation will grasp and achieve the full reality of man's proper stature -- and that the rest will betray it. It is those few that move the world and give life its meaning -- and it is those few that I have always sought to address.

In 1962, Ayn Rand expressed essentially the same idea in another form.

On a television interview, Mike Wallace once asked me what I thought of such tactics [blatant misrepresentation of Ayn Rand's ideas]. I answered that I agree with a line of advice from Kipling's poem "If": "if you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools..." I can bear it. It is not fools that I seek to address.

[Henrik Unné 0]

Why not focus, then, on the producers and intellectuals, the men of the mind? Why not concentrate any efforts to bring about fundamental cultural reform on bringing the essential message to them, as Ayn Rand did? To neutralize bad intellectuals, the world needs good intellectuals.

Here is a passage by Ayn Rand that I have always found particularly memorable and moving in this regard.

It does not matter that only a few in each generation will grasp and achieve the full reality of man's proper stature -- and that the rest will betray it. It is those few that move the world and give life its meaning -- and it is those few that I have always sought to address.

In 1962, Ayn Rand expressed essentially the same idea in another form.

On a television interview, Mike Wallace once asked me what I thought of such tactics [blatant misrepresentation of Ayn Rand's ideas]. I answered that I agree with a line of advice from Kipling's poem "If": "if you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools..." I can bear it. It is not fools that I seek to address.

But I *do* focus on the men of the mind. I spend a lot of my spare time writing articles on political and philosophical subjects for publication (mostly on debate sites on the Internet, as the rest of the mass media is pretty much closed to me). I write those articles because I wish to reach the small minority of individuals who care to think (about abstract subjects). And I do not go around proselytizing to my workmates when I am at work. I only speak up when it is appropriate, which does happen from time to time. But when I do speak up the reaction is, usually, indifference, derision or amusement. Which p-s me off.

However, I experience my awareness of the premise that most men are morally depraved as something that makes it easier for me to keep on fighting. Because my premise that most men are depraved bolsters my benevolent universe premise. I used to be depressed by the thought that the world was full of injustice, because I thought that so many innocent men were suffering. But now I realize that the vast majority of mankind deserves it. So the world is not so full of injustice after all! So the world is not as bad as I once thought that it was.

And what then about the few members of the Moral Minority, when they are stricken by misfortune? Well, since they are better men than the rest, they will at least have that inner tranquility, that peace of mind that Kira had, when she died at the end of We the Living. I know that I myself will not suffer *too* badly if Sweden goes to the dogs, because I will know that I did live, and lived well, since I fought for my (rational) values.

[System Builder 0]

...when I do speak up the reaction is, usually, indifference, derision or amusement. Which p-s me off.

However, I experience my awareness of the premise that most men are morally depraved as something that makes it easier for me to keep on fighting. Because my premise that most men are depraved bolsters my benevolent universe premise. I used to be depressed by the thought that the world was full of injustice, because I thought that so many innocent men were suffering. But now I realize that the vast majority of mankind deserves it. So the world is not so full of injustice after all! So the world is not as bad as I once thought that it was.

Thank you, Henrik, for sharing some rather deep personal insights. Moral contempt or disgust for the Joe Sixpacks of the world -- Ayn Rand called them "human balast" (FNI), and Leonard Peikoff has referred to them as "zeroes" in relation to the DIM Hypothesis -- is certainly a key step in breaking free of any psychological influence they may have over you and others. I hope you will be able find at least a few Swedes in your lifetime who understand and appreciate your efforts to spread a more positive, integrated view of man and of existence. I hope your new wife will prove to be supportive as well.

Ayn Rand commented occasionally about the idealism of youth. One particularly memorable passage for me can be found in her article, "The Inexplicable Personal Alchemy," republished in her book, Return of the Primitive. She begins: "There is a fundamental conviction which some people never acquire, some hold only in their youth, and a few hold to the end of their days -- the conviction that ideas matter." Two paragraphs later, she explains, "if justice matters, then one fights for it: one speaks out -- in the unnamed certainty that someone, somewhere will understand." [p. 122]

She also wrote about youthful idealism in her review of Hugo's novel, Ninety-Three, published in The Ayn Rand Column, Chapter 14: "When people look back at their childhood or youth, their wistfulness comes from the memory, not of what their lives had been in those years, but of what life had then promised to be. The expectation of some undefinable splendor..."

And in her introduction to The Romantic Manifesto, she explained: "As a child, I saw a glimpse of the pre-World War I world, the last afterglow of the most radiant cultural atmosphere in human history...." A little later she observes: "If I see that the good is possible to men, yet it vanishes, I do not take 'Such is the trend of the world' as a sufficient explanation. I ask such questions as: Why? -- What caused it? -- What or who determines the trends of the world? (The answer is: philosophy.)"

For me, it comes down to an issue of motivation by love more than by contempt or disgust, although objective moral evaluations of others are certainly essential in adhereing to the virtue of justice. In "The Age of Envy" (republished in Return of the Primitive), Ayn Rand concluded: "What is the weapon one needs to fight such an enemy [the despicable smallness of evil]? For once, it is I who will say that love is the answer -- love in the actual meaning of the word, which is the opposite of the meaning they give it -- love as a response to values, love of the good for being the good."

[Henrik Unné 0]

...when I do speak up the reaction is, usually, indifference, derision or amusement. Which p-s me off.

However, I experience my awareness of the premise that most men are morally depraved as something that makes it easier for me to keep on fighting. Because my premise that most men are depraved bolsters my benevolent universe premise. I used to be depressed by the thought that the world was full of injustice, because I thought that so many innocent men were suffering. But now I realize that the vast majority of mankind deserves it. So the world is not so full of injustice after all! So the world is not as bad as I once thought that it was.

Thank you, Henrik, for sharing some rather deep personal insights. Moral contempt or disgust for the Joe Sixpacks of the world -- Ayn Rand called them "human balast" (FNI), and Leonard Peikoff has referred to them as "zeroes" in relation to the DIM Hypothesis -- is certainly a key step in breaking free of any psychological influence they may have over you and others. I hope you will be able find at least a few Swedes in your lifetime who understand and appreciate your efforts to spread a more positive, integrated view of man and of existence. I hope your new wife will prove to be supportive as well.

Ayn Rand commented occasionally about the idealism of youth. One particularly memorable passage for me can be found in her article, "The Inexplicable Personal Alchemy," republished in her book, Return of the Primitive. She begins: "There is a fundamental conviction which some people never acquire, some hold only in their youth, and a few hold to the end of their days -- the conviction that ideas matter." Two paragraphs later, she explains, "if justice matters, then one fights for it: one speaks out -- in the unnamed certainty that someone, somewhere will understand." [p. 122]

She also wrote about youthful idealism in her review of Hugo's novel, Ninety-Three, published in The Ayn Rand Column, Chapter 14: "When people look back at their childhood or youth, their wistfulness comes from the memory, not of what their lives had been in those years, but of what life had then promised to be. The expectation of some undefinable splendor..."

And in her introduction to The Romantic Manifesto, she explained: "As a child, I saw a glimpse of the pre-World War I world, the last afterglow of the most radiant cultural atmosphere in human history...." A little later she observes: "If I see that the good is possible to men, yet it vanishes, I do not take 'Such is the trend of the world' as a sufficient explanation. I ask such questions as: Why? -- What caused it? -- What or who determines the trends of the world? (The answer is: philosophy.)"

For me, it comes down to an issue of motivation by love more than by contempt or disgust, although objective moral evaluations of others are certainly essential in adhereing to the virtue of justice. In "The Age of Envy" (republished in Return of the Primitive), Ayn Rand concluded: "What is the weapon one needs to fight such an enemy [the despicable smallness of evil]? For once, it is I who will say that love is the answer -- love in the actual meaning of the word, which is the opposite of the meaning they give it -- love as a response to values, love of the good for being the good."

I *am* motivated by a love of values. I never gave up on my conviction that ideas matter. That is what saved me. I do not give up, in disgust at the state of the world. I continue to write for publication, in order to reach whatever few minds can be reached by me. But I feel that I have to identify all facts of reality that are relevant to my life, and face them, no matter what they are. Sure, it can seem to be depressing to identify the majority of mankind as being monsters, but if that is what they in fact are, then there is no rational reason to evade that fact. Honesty pays, in some way or other. For me, the identification that I have made, makes life easier for me in a number of ways. For example, regarding every person who defaults on the responsibility of thinking time and again, over the course of his entire lifetime, provides me with the comforting knowledge that I was not done in by mere moral smallfry, when my own parents nearly destroyed my life.

[System Builder 0]

I do not give up, in disgust at the state of the world. I continue to write for publication, in order to reach whatever few minds can be reached by me.... the majority of mankind as being monsters... the comforting knowledge that I was not done in by mere moral smallfry... my own parents nearly destroyed my life.

It sounds like you're definitely on a productive track, Henrik, in your explicit philosophical orientation. Are there any successes that you can share with us? I suppose successes are few and far between against a sea of monsters, but I would be greatly interested to know if you've seen any indication at all that your efforts may be accomplishing something in the world beyond purely personal psychological self-defense.

I also read somewhere in one of your other postings that you are originally from New York. Do you find Sweden preferable to New York or other U.S. cities, despite so many evil Swedes?

[Henrik Unné 0]

I do not give up, in disgust at the state of the world. I continue to write for publication, in order to reach whatever few minds can be reached by me.... the majority of mankind as being monsters... the comforting knowledge that I was not done in by mere moral smallfry... my own parents nearly destroyed my life.

It sounds like you're definitely on a productive track, Henrik, in your explicit philosophical orientation. Are there any successes that you can share with us? I suppose successes are few and far between against a sea of monsters, but I would be greatly interested to know if you've seen any indication at all that your efforts may be accomplishing something in the world beyond purely personal psychological self-defense.

I also read somewhere in one of your other postings that you are originally from New York. Do you find Sweden preferable to New York or other U.S. cities, despite so many evil Swedes?

I was born in Sweden, to Swedish parents, but when I was 5 years old my father got an assignment to sell Swedish products in the USA. We moved to America so that he could work there. My father worked in an office on Manhattan, and we lived in suburbs of New York City. First we lived 2 years in Stamford, Connecticut. Then we lived 9 years in Tenafly, New Jersey. When I was 16 my parents sent me back to Sweden. They thought that with my psychological problems, I might do better in Sweden. I think that they made a mistake. I liked America more than I like Sweden. I am an "American who happened to be born in Sweden". I definitely have the "American sense-of-life". And I appreciate such "American" values as liberty, independence, self-reliance and individualism. I am a misfit here in Sweden. Still, I am happy.

Have I had any existential successes here in Sweden. Yes, when I discovered Objectivism back in 1979, 9 years after I had returned to Sweden, and 5 years after I began recovering from my schizophrenia, Objectivism was virtually unknown in Sweden. I was the second person in Sweden to become a serious student of Objectivism (the first was Per-Olof Samuelsson, you may have heard of him). Since 1979 Objectivism has made a lot of progress in Sweden, largely thanks to my efforts and Per-Olof´s efforts (Per-Olof and I worked together for many years, spreading Objectivism, but we had a falling out about 15 years ago, because Per-Olof took Dr. Reisman´s side in the conflict with the principals of the ARI, and I took the other side). Today there are probably at least 50 serious students of Objectivism in Sweden, perhaps as many as 100. And Swedish translations of Anthem, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are widely available in Swedish bookstores. If you want to read more about my successes, and failures, you should read my long essay in the Psychology section "The Causes of My Schizophrenia". That essay is largely autobiographical. Thank you for your friendly interest in my fate.