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Today on the show, I'm joined
by Yarn. Brooke Yarn comes onto the

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podcast to talk to us about the
philosophy of objectivism, especially through the lens

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of a well known writer called iron
Rand. Iron Rand has written many essays

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philosophical essays looking at objectivism, but
she's most well known for four books We

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the Living Anthem, The Fountain Head, and then finally her magnum opus,

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Atlas Shrugged. I really enjoyed Yarn
coming on because he began to break down

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the difference for us the listener between
faith versus reason, faith being something we

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can't know and we hope to live
and live into the world by and explores

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why faith isn't enough to make sense
of and enjoy and fully live within life,

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and why reason really is the crux
and pinnacle of what we're trying to

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utilize to get to where we're going. There's this idea that reality is out

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there, it's here right now.
We can touch it. It's tangible,

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we can engage with it, we
can perform experiments on it, we can

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begin to get our hands into it. We engage with reality through reason,

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and it has to be the individual
who engages and uses their reason to interact

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with reality and there's a really interesting
pattern going on here, which Yarn explores

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with us on the show itself.
Yaa mentions this term epistemology a couple of

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times in the show, and just
so you know, epistemology is the theory

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of knowledge, how we can have, attain and utilize knowledge. So fantastic

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conversation that we have with Yarn today. I really valued his time and his

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thoughts as he explored iron Rand's life, her works, his own story.

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And at the very end we have
a fantastic few minutes where he talks about

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his views of faith and religion and
why they are antithetical to objectivism, the

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philosophy that iron Rand represents. If
you're new to unbelief Dies, i'd ask

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you to hit the subscribe button and
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Essentially, that helps to boost our
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algorithms, it helps others to find
This conversation. Enough of that for now,

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I hope you enjoyed this conversation on
iron Rand and objectivism with Yaron Brook.

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Cheers. Hello, and welcome to
another episode of When Belief Dies.

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My name is Sam. Today I'm
joined by Yaron Brook. Yarn, it's

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great to have you on the show. Thanks for having me answer. It's

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good to be here. So,
Yarn, I've been following you for quite

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a long time, looking at your
work and listening to a lot of your

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conversations, and I've found your thoughts
and opinions around objectivism and iron Rand to

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be very stimulating and very challenging to
me and my original beliefs, coming from

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a Christian background now being more agnostic
atheist, they're very challenging. So I

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kind of want to dive into that. But I'm aware that a lot of

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my audience probably don't know who you
are. So would you mind just giving

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us an overview about yourself and your
work if that's okay? Sure? So

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I where do I start? I
for many years was the CEO of the

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Iron Ran Institute. From two thousand
to twenty seventeen, I was the CEO

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of the Iron Ran Institute. I
am today the chairman of the Ward and

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I'm sure we'll getting into who i
Innran was and whatever ideas. I first

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read iron Ran when I was sixteen
in at the time, I was living

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in Israel, and I was never
religious, so that was never that was

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there an issue. But her philosophy
blew my mind when I was sixteen.

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It changed my perspective on a lot
of different things in life, and it's

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really shaped my life since then.
And I'm, you know, kind of

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what seems like a previous life.
I was a civil engineer. I've got

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an MBA, I've got a PhD
in finance, i was a finance professor.

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But what I spend my time doing
today is really advocating for her ideas

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or applying her ideas. I have
a YouTube channel, I'm on Twitter.

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I traveled around the world giving talks. I'll be in the in the UK

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in a couple of weeks to give
a couple of talks. So I'm I'm

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all over the world speaking about really
the application of iron Van's ideas to everything,

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to your life as an individual,
to the political world in which we

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live, and kind of any anything
in between. It's amazing and what is

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it kind of I guess specifically this
and I've got you and to be seven

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Thieves and say passionate about both objectivism
and iron Random. Aware we can dive

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into the terms and who she will
shortly, but it'd just begin to get

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that sort of spark from you.
I'd say the number one thing that excited

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me about iron Rand was the idea
that your life is, in a very

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deep, fundamental sense, yours.
It's it's it doesn't belong to the group.

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You don't owe it to the tribe. You're not a sacrificial animal to

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whoever decides that you should sacrifice for
them the needs of others, and not

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a moral claim against you. The
purpose of your life is your happiness and

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your success and your living the best
life that you can live. And that

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was for me a real revolution.
I grew up in Israel in the sixties

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and seventies, and it was a
very collectivistic place. It was a place

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in which you are part of this
nation, or even broader, you are

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part of this group called jew Jews, and you expected to sacrifice your life

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for the greater good of the Jewish
people, for the greater good of Israel.

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It was just it was just a
question of you know, when the

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grenade was there so you could jump
on it. That was and that was

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the essence of virtue, was to
sacrifice yourself. And Rand kind of asks

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this fundamental question, she asks,
why why should you sacrifice yourself? Why?

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Why is other people's lives other people
more important than you are? Why

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why are their lives or their happiness
or their success more important than your own?

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And that that was a real revolution
for me. That that shaped it.

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And then once you start taking your
own life seriously, once you start

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focusing on your own happiness and your
own success and your own flourishing as a

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human being, that's fun and that's
exciting, and that's that's something to be

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passionate about, and you get the
rewards from it, right do you?

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So? I'm excited in a passion
to playmoli about the impact that RAN's ideas

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that objectivism has on the individual's life, and it gives him a kind of

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a moral sanction and a moral okay
to pursue his own success in his own

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happiness. I was a little bit
of a tangent, but I think it's

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worth worth going down. I was
talking to some friends recently and they're both

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Polish and live over here in the
UK now, and they're both in their

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forties and lived for about good ten
years within socialism and then kind of got

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out of that system. And I'd
read Michael Bukhakhov's The Master and Margharita,

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which is a very well known Russian
novel from the nineteen thirties, and I

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was kind of giving them my reflections
on it, and what kind of struck

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me quite quite fearfully is I was
very blind and I am very blind to

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a lot of the socialist I guess
trends and elements, or the collectivist trends

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and elements that Bulgakov was trying to
get across because I've not been raised or

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brought up in that sort of environment. I guess kind of you know,

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they're probably diving quite deeply to start
with. It'd be really interesting kind of

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hear from you having come from a
bit more of a sort of collectivist setting

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to a theoretically more individualist society like
the US. But we can also get

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into whether that's true as well,
And do you think it's possible for people

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who haven't been raised in that collectivist
ideology to actually see the warning signs and

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the issues and the concerns, or
do you think it's something that actually we

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can begin to learn and teach ourselves
through reading and conversations like this. So

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yeah, I definitely think we can
shape our own future, we can shape

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our own focus. And collectivism has
learned and it can be unlearned. Individualism

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is in a sense chosen and learned, and it can be unchosen and unlarned.

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So I think people are much more
flexible than we often give them credit

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for. And look, there's the
reality is that there's elements of individualism in

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Israel is what could now be a
successful as it is today without that.

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There are strong elements of individualism in
Israeli culture and in Jewish culture more broadly.

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And of course there are strong collectivistic
elements in the United States and suddenly

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in Europe. Europe is a very
collectivistic place, not quite as collectivistic as

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I think Israel was in sixteen seventies. And of course Israel was also socialist

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back then, and that has changed. So Israel has moved systematically away from

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socialism since the early nineteen eighties o
the late nineteen seventies. So socialism and

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collectivism go to hand in hand,
But so the fascism and collectivism, and

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so does much of the political systems
that we have today go hand in hand

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with collectivism, just a milder form
of collectivism which allows some room for individualism.

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But what I learned from mine Rand, and what gets me excited,

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is not to settle for these mixtures. Individualism is good in my view,

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Collectivism is evil. Why have a
little bit of evil? Why why do

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a little bit? So when I
came to the United States, I was

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disappointed a little bit, because I
mean, I knew somewhat what I was

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coming to its but I certainly wasn't
disappointed in that it wasn't more individualistic.

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And when I go now back to
Israel, I see more individualism there than

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I did when I was growing up
there, but it could be a lot

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better. So my goal is to
achieve the best possible, and the best

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possible is much better than anything exists
today in the world, in any country.

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But we have these mixtures some countries. I think the UK is among

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European countries. It's probably more individualistic
and less collectivistic is compared to some other

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European countries, but it's none of
them are good enough. And I think

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people don't really realize how much they'm
missing out, and how much poorer they

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are, not just poorer materially,
but poorer spiritually, Poorer in lack of

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happiness, poor in lack of opportunities
to grow and to flourish as human beings

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because they don't take their lives seriously
and because they're not focused on pursuing their

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own happiness and pursuing their own lives
because they barred into immorality of collectivism in

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one way or another to some degree
or another. That's beautifully said. Yeah,

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yeah, there are a few more
questions down that vein we can get

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to indue course, but before we
do, it's a very big question and

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very big ask. And Yaron,
but would you mind giving us an overview

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of Iron rand and her work?
Yeah, maybe a bit of a biography,

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because I think it's kind of it's
interesting, her life was interesting,

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and we'll talk about her work as
well. I mean. Randall was born

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in nineteen oh five in Saint Petersburg, Russia. She was born to a

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middle class Jewish family. Alicia Rosenblum
was was Rosenblum was her original name for

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her father owned a pharmacy Um and
Uh In nineteen seventeen, when she was

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twelve, she witnessed the Russian Revolution
and witnessed the communist takeover of Russia and

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everything that that was involved in that
I meant, no more pharmacy for her

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father, no more living in a
in an apartment by themselves now sharing an

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apartment, and and and no more
freedom of speech, and the whole environment

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and oppression that communism involved. She
went to university in what was communist Russia

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and quickly realized that she wouldn't survive
if she stayed there. I mean,

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she would be killed. She was
too much of an individualist. She was

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too much had her own views,
own opinions. She didn't conform. She

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was this individualistic rebel within this world
of conformity that was communism. There was

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a small wind of opportunity in the
nineteen twenties where Stalin not Stalin, was

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Lennon still I guess let allowed some
people out on different visas or different and

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she she got out to do research
related to something she was working on at

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the university in the United States,
and she managed to get out, and

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she managed to get to the United
States, where she had relatives in Chicago.

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She spent a little time in Chicago
but then she headed Hollywood. She

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wanted to be a right from age
seven, she had decided she wanted to

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be a writer, and she loved
American movie She had seen silent movies in

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um in Russia, and she had
fallen in love with cinema, and she

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wanted to be in the movie business. She wanted to write for the movies.

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So she here's this little Russian girl, I think she was twenty two

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years old. She lives in Hollywood
with nothing, I mean literally nothing,

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and she shows up at the studios
of the Cisa be de Mill Company.

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And of course, I mean most
of your listeners probably don't know who sees

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to be the Mill was, but
he was a Steven Spielberg of his day.

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I mean, he was the director
of his day. And you know,

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they said, you know, don't
call us, we'll call you,

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but we don't really have anything.
But she walks out and there's Steven there

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is seas to be the Mill sitting
in his big convertible outside, and she

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stares at him and he asks her
why she's staring, and she tells him

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his story, the story about being
here from Russia, and she wants to

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be in the film industry, and
she wants to be a writer, and

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and he says, get in,
I'll show you all movies a mate,

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And he takes it to the backlot
of the studio where they're filming The King

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of Kings, the Story of Jesus
Christ, of all movies, and he

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gives herr pass and he and says, when she spent a week watching how

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movies a mate? And she lands
up becoming an extra in the movie set.

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She meets her future husband on the
movie set, and she lands up

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finding odds and end's jobs. Not
as a writer, obviously, she's still

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young, and she still englishes us
very much a second language at this point.

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But she starts spending her time writing
and studying and figuring out English.

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And she lands up writing a play
that is actually performed in la and actually

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makes it too Broadway and is performed
in New York. She lands up writing

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a book called We the Living,
which is a story of a young woman

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in Russia and into Communism. So
it's the most autobiographical of all her books,

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even though it's not autobiographical, very
powerful story about real life, what

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life is like in the communism um. And that is not hugely successful but

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it's it gets out there, and
she slowly advances also with in Hollywood,

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and she she ultimately will become a
scriptwriter, and she does write some scripts

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from movies, and she she added
some scripts and she helps them choose scripts

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from movies. But then Um,
in nineteen forty five she has a book

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called The fountain Head, which she
has written before that she publishes a small

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book called Anthem, and actually he
gets published in the UK before it gets

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published in the US, and there's
good you know, it's a dystopian novel

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that it's likely that before nineteen eighty
four has written Um Anthem was published,

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and there's some you can see some
cross influences across these different, you know,

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dystopian novels. Anyway, she writes
The Found in ed twelve publishers rejected.

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Finally a publisher accepts it and publishes
it. But it's not that confident

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that it'll sell. It's the only
like print, two thousand copies, but

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word of mouth as as this huge
impact. It sells very quickly. Then

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they go into another printing and another
printing and another printing, and it becomes

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a best sell in New York Times
best Selling novel it gets quite very positive

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reviews. It's and to this day
it sells, you know, over one

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hundred thousand copies. It's translated to
pretty much every language in the world.

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I think there only two major languages
in which it RAN's works of not being

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published, and that is Arabic and
Fossey. I think every other, every

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other major language in the world who
work is inslated. So she does very

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well. From the fountain Head,
she returns to Los Angeles. She she

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works in Hollywood, she does some
scripts, and the meantime she's she writes

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a book called Atlas Shrugged, which
lands up being her last novel. And

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Atlas Shrugged, by this point publishes
compete to publish it. When it's published,

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it's an instant bestseller, and again
it sells hundreds of thousands of copies

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to this day in all kinds of
languages. In writing fountain Head and Atlas

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Shrugged, I Man always had one
goal for her writing. She wanted to

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project what she calls the ideal man, and so she did a lot of

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research about what is an ideal man? What does the culture I think an

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ideal man? What is philosophers think
an ideal man? What can I learn

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from them, and she's very disappointed
in what she sees. There's very little

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consideration, and when there is talk
about the ideal man, it's not her

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ideal man. To her, Jesus
is not an ideal man. The nichean

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superman is not an ideal man.
And most philosophers just don't project the kind

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of what she sees as the human
potential. So she lands up having to

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come up with her own philosophy and
discover on philosophy and figure out her philosophy

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as she's writing these novels, and
the novels are very philosophical, and there

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is a projection of what she believes
as an ideal man and an ideal woman

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and ultimately what an ideal society should
look like. But that is all so

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the philosophy serves her literature. She's
writing, she's thinking about philosophy in order

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to write the novels. But once
the novels are published, she then turns

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to writing that philosophy. So she
spends Adams trug This is published in nineteen

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fifty seven, and she spends the
next the rest of her life. She

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died in nineteen eighty two. She's
sends the rest of her life really writing

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philosophy and applying philosophy to common events
and uh, and and kind of teaching

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her philosophy to the students the philosophers, um, and and creating objectivism,

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which is the name she gave to
her philosophy, and kind of a movement

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around objectivism. So so she wrote
books, books of essays. Uh.

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There's a book on her epistemology called
Introduction to Objective is Topistemology. There's a

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book on ethics called the Virtue of
Selfishness, a book on her politics called

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Capitalism Non Ideal, and a series
of other books philosophy who needs it with

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philosophical essays, applying the philosophy to
issues of the day and to issues of

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human life. And maybe it's just
say something about the philosophy. So what

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is the philosophy? So this is
kind of on one foot. Obviously it's

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philosophy. So whole books can be
said. But but in a very short

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um, reality is what it is. This is her metaphysics. Reality is

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what it is. Your wishes don't
change reality. Your wishes don't make reality.

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You don't create reality. And there
is no other consciousness out that it

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creates reality. Reality just is it
always has been, and it is in

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functions by the laws of nature of
of reality. We as as human beings

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um, have the capacity to know
reality, to discover reality and understand reality.

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That and that is reason. That
it is human reason, our ability

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to identify and integrate the material provided
to us our senses, and our senses

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are indeed connected to reality. They
give us information about reality. M souh.

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You know, reason is our means
of knowledge, not our emotions.

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Our emotions are important. Emotions are
wonderful. You experience life through your emotions.

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They're our tools of cognition. They
don't tell you the truth about the

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world out there. They might tell
you something about you, but not about

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the world out there. For that
you need reason um and and the world

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is noble. That is, she
rejects skepticism and completely this idea that we

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can't know reality. That we don't
know reality. So we can know reality,

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and the tool for knowing it is
reason. And the alternative, of

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course, is emotion. The other
alternative is revelation. There is no such

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thing as revelation, not the Platonic
kind of Plato with the world of forms

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and somehow the philosophy communicates with it
or nor of religion where God kind of

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tells you what the truth is.
You know, truth is not truth.

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It needs to be discovered. It
needs to be discovered by you, and

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it needs to be discovered by the
use of your reason. So she rejects,

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She rejects kind of all forms of
superstition and also forms of mysticism.

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Only the individual can reason. The
reality is that you can't eat for me,

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you can't think for me. And
indeed, thinking is what makes us

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human, and thinking is what makes
it possible for us to survive as human

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beings. And the unit the unit
of value here, the unit that thinks,

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the unit that survives, is the
individual human being. And therefore,

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in morality, her view is that
what matters is the individual and his life,

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and what matters is his ability to
survive, thrive, and ultimately flourish,

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and to do that he must apply
his reason to the question of how

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to live. And therefore she derives
a morality from the facts of human existence

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and the facts of human nature and
human need to survive, and of his

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need to use reason in order to
survive. So her morality is reason based

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and is focused on the individual's own
happiness and own success and own flourishing,

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as she would say, not sacrificing
himself to others, but also not asking

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all this to sacrifice to him.
This is a This is a morality of

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individualism where you don't you don't again, live for other people, but you

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don't expect other people to live for
you either. You live for yourself and

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interact with other people by means of
trade, either spiritual trade or material trade,

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but win win relationships where you benefit
from them and they benefit from you.

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And that is the nature. The
nature of a healthy human relationships is

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through this relationship of win win relationship
of trade. And in order to achieve

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all this, you need to be
free. You need to be free to

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think, to use your mind,
to use your reason, and therefore you

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need to be able to act on
your thoughts. You might be right,

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you might be wrong, you might
make mistakes, but you need to be

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able to be to be free to
test, to check these things out.

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And as long as you're not holding
other people, as long as you're not

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violating the rights of other people,
you should be left free to use your

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rational judgment in pursuit of your rational
values, free of coasion, fee of

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force, and the only political system
that allows for that is capitalism. Capitalism

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is that political system that leaves individuals
free to pursue their own values, using

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their own judgment, free of coosi
and fear of force, fee of control

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by the government. So she rejects
socialism, she rejects fascism, she rejects

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all forms of statism. She is
for individual liberty, individual freedom. So

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that's that is the basic arc of
her philosophy. I mean, we could

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get into the aesthetics if you want, but that's a whole other or the

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issue. Yeah, no, that
was that was really well said. I

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think one of the questions, like
I mentioned some one of the audience asking,

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is, um, why is the
philosophy not known as individualism? Then

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why is it known as objectivism?
Is there is there a reason why it

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became known to be that instead of
individualism. Yes, because I think at

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the heart of her philosophy is this
conception of reason. Um, so you

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know it should have been called reasonism, but that sounds weird, and so

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you could have called it rationalism,
but rationalism was already taken. The rationalist

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philosophies and the rationalists are very different
than I RAN's philosophy. So she didn't

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want to be associated with Descartes and
philosophers of that nature. Um. So

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she was looking for something um epistemological, something that that there was like reason

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that that related to to to what
man does in order to achieve his individualism

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in order to achieve his success um
and object objectives. Objectivity is at the

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heart of that. What is objectivity? Objectivity is identifying reality, identifying the

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fact. It's a mistake to think
of objectivity as presenting both sides of an

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argument. I mean, how many
sides are there? They could be fifty

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five sides of an argument. So
objectivity is not about presenting lots of positions.

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It's about considering and then discovering the
truth, discovering what's real, discovering

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what is actually in reality? What
is what is real in reality? I

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e. What is true? So
um so then so objectivity is the means

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by which we attain knowledge. It's
the means by which reason functions. And

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therefore it's the closest reason that she
could come up with as as a name

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for the philosophy she wanted. She
wanted to ground it in epistemology. She

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didn't want it to be to political
individualism is somewhat of a political you know,

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because the contrast with collectivism, which
is a political ideology. She didn't

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view her philosophy is primarily political.
She viewed, the philosophy is primarily epistemological

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and ethical and moral. I really
like that. And and the fact that

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we're saying reality is a fundamental fact. We use reason to interpret that.

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And the individual has to have that
onus, on themselves to go and use

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reason to understand and interact with reality. Yeah, to understand reality and to

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and to to figure it out,
to figure out what's true and what's not,

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what's right, and what's what's not
so and that is what reason is

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for. It's you know, and
and and one of the you know,

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the important moral point is, and
it's a moral epistemological point. Is every

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other animal out there basically is born
with the recipe for survival coded into their

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DNA. I know exactly what to
do. They there's no choices available to

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them. It's it's as close as
we have to AI. Right. They

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get the inputs and the output is
determined by the algorithm inside the genetic code.

348
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Human beings are not like that.
We're an evolutionary leap in this sense,

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we don't have the software coded in. We have the hardware. We

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have we have a brain and a
mind, and we have the capacity to

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engage and to write the software.
We have the capacity, uh, you

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know, to we have to figure
out how to survive. We don't know

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how to survive. You know,
a bird has how to fly coded into

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it. A human being does not. Agriculture is not coded into anybody.

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Hunting even it's not coded in.
So people had to discover when they went

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to hunts. They had a figure
stuff out, figure stuff out, use

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reason that that build tools, that
are build weapons. They had to communicate

358
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in order to maybe hunt together.
They had build traps. They literally had

359
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to do things that require cognition.
And you know, I often asked the

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audience says, how many of you
have the gene for hunting? And there

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might be a few guys in the
audience who think they do, but they

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don't. Everything that human beings create
literally everything requires thinking, requires thought and

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thinking. It's not automatic. It
doesn't just turn on. Indeed, there

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a lot of people out there,
unfortunately who never think or don't think.

365
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They mimic, they copy, they
follow, but they don't think. And

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thinking requires effort, and the particular
effort to thinking requires is focus. It

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requires you know, it requires somebody
to engage in free will. And I

368
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know free will is a controversial issue
among many people, but it shouldn't be.

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It's it's it's the basic thing that
human beings do because we have to

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engage with our reason. It doesn't
turn on automatically, and some people choose

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not to turn it on, and
and and that's that's uh, that's the

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sad state of of of many people
in humanity. But to the extent that

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you turn it on and you engage, and you focus, and you look,

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and you and you observe reality and
you understand it and you integrate and

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you exert the effort to understand and
to learn and to grow, that's the

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extent to which you will be successful
as a human being. And to the

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extent that you don't, you just
drift, that's the extent to which you

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will fail as a human being.
Had a questionable I was going to save

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to the end, which was from
a patron, which I'll read, but

380
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then I want to kind of frame
it as well within this context. So

381
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they're kind of saying you know Ironrand
it's all about selfishness, and they say,

382
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then that is often claimed by people
that when they engage with iron Rand,

383
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the idea that the self being at
one center can't lead to fulfillment.

384
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I'd be interesting to kind of get
your take on that, but also kind

385
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of just reflecting before you do jump
into kind of pushing back on this idea

386
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of it's just selfishness and you can't
be fulfilled if you're at the center of

387
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everything. And it kind of sounds
like what you're saying is that as you

388
00:32:37.720 --> 00:32:40.559
use reason, you begin to use
also cooperation with those around you, that

389
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you have that wind wind relationship.
And actually it sounds like although the self

390
00:32:45.759 --> 00:32:50.200
is at the center, it's still
in a holistic way. You're still driving

391
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value and freedoms and life, I
guess through those interpersonal connections and those relationships.

392
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But yeah, i'd love to get
your take on that. Yes,

393
00:32:59.279 --> 00:33:01.519
the first I don't want to run
away from the term selfish, right,

394
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what does selfish means? It's contrasted
with self less. Selfless means not taking

395
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responsibility for self, not taking care
of self, not focusing on self.

396
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And yeah, self fish is the
right term in the sense that Ironman's morality

397
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is about focusing on making your life
the best life that it can be,

398
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the most flourishing, most successful.
Does that involve other people? Well,

399
00:33:30.720 --> 00:33:34.920
of course it does. I mean
it would be bizarre if it didn't.

400
00:33:35.799 --> 00:33:38.359
Living on the desert island is no
fun and it's not the best life that

401
00:33:38.440 --> 00:33:40.559
you can live. There's no way
it's the best life. To innecutive,

402
00:33:42.000 --> 00:33:47.000
I depend on gazillions of people too, I don't know, produce the iPhone

403
00:33:47.079 --> 00:33:52.119
so that I can enjoy, or
or build internet platform so we can do

404
00:33:52.160 --> 00:33:58.799
this in this interview and see,
I have this unbelievable appreciation for all those

405
00:33:58.839 --> 00:34:06.240
people, and believable appreciation business generally, and unbelievable appreciation for inventors and scientists

406
00:34:06.279 --> 00:34:10.840
because I'm selfish because all the stuff
that they have discovered and they do and

407
00:34:10.880 --> 00:34:15.800
they produce I benefit from And isn't
that so cool? So thank you to

408
00:34:15.840 --> 00:34:20.480
all the producers out there and all
the innovators at all. See, and

409
00:34:20.639 --> 00:34:23.039
then it gives you a completely different
perspective on life and on the world.

410
00:34:23.119 --> 00:34:29.559
You become much more appreciative of the
efforts of other people and much more thankful

411
00:34:29.840 --> 00:34:34.320
for other people. And you know, so so I love trading with people.

412
00:34:34.440 --> 00:34:38.119
I love buying stuff selling stuff.
Um and uh and uh, so

413
00:34:38.239 --> 00:34:42.440
I want other people. You know, I don't want to get money for

414
00:34:42.519 --> 00:34:45.920
nothing. I want to be able
to provide a service. And I'm happy

415
00:34:45.960 --> 00:34:50.199
to trade because I you know,
if if somebody is going to I want

416
00:34:50.280 --> 00:34:52.239
something. If I'm going to get
something for somebody, I want it to

417
00:34:52.239 --> 00:34:58.480
be because of something that is worthwhile. Um, that's part of be being

418
00:34:58.519 --> 00:35:00.480
proud of the work that I do. I don't want I don't want a

419
00:35:00.480 --> 00:35:02.960
free lunch. I don't want somebody
just to give me stuff, right that

420
00:35:02.960 --> 00:35:12.559
that would diminish me. So selfishness
really means this idea of viewing everything out

421
00:35:12.599 --> 00:35:15.639
there from the perspective of how does
it contribute to my life? And it

422
00:35:15.639 --> 00:35:21.119
turns out, wow, gazillions of
people do and amazing stuff is happening out

423
00:35:21.119 --> 00:35:24.840
there, and it's like, I'm
incredibly benevolent to other people because other people

424
00:35:25.239 --> 00:35:30.559
contribute so much to my life.
And then that's kind of at a social

425
00:35:30.639 --> 00:35:34.760
level, But then what about I
mean, think about the value you get

426
00:35:34.800 --> 00:35:42.800
from friendship and the immense visibility and
the immense emotional satisfaction and spiritual satisfaction you

427
00:35:42.840 --> 00:35:46.199
get in friendship, and friendship is
not about sacrifice. Friendship fish again,

428
00:35:46.440 --> 00:35:51.199
it's about this spiritual trade. This
about giving and getting. And if you

429
00:35:51.199 --> 00:35:55.039
don't think it's trade, try doing
friendship just one sided and see how long

430
00:35:55.079 --> 00:36:00.079
that lasts. And of course take
it one of a further. What about

431
00:36:00.119 --> 00:36:06.280
love, I mean, woe is
Are there many more important things than love

432
00:36:06.360 --> 00:36:08.639
and a human being's life in terms
of I mean, love is the most

433
00:36:08.639 --> 00:36:15.639
selfish emotion you can have. It's
what this woman makes me feel. It's

434
00:36:15.679 --> 00:36:20.800
what this woman, you know,
it makes my life better, my life

435
00:36:20.840 --> 00:36:24.639
better. I'm not sacrificing for her. I love it because it makes me

436
00:36:24.840 --> 00:36:29.920
a better human being, because it
makes me feel better about myself and about

437
00:36:29.960 --> 00:36:36.000
life and about the world. So
love is incredibly selfish. Friendship is incredibly

438
00:36:36.000 --> 00:36:39.119
selfish, And it's not about being
the center of the universe. I don't

439
00:36:39.159 --> 00:36:44.360
think selfishness is about being egocentric.
I'm not the center of the universe.

440
00:36:44.639 --> 00:36:49.920
I mean being a center of the
universe is more narcissistic. I don't think

441
00:36:49.960 --> 00:36:52.800
everybody should view me as a center
of the universe. For them, their

442
00:36:52.880 --> 00:36:55.559
life is the center. So I'm
the center for me, But for them,

443
00:36:55.599 --> 00:37:00.119
they're the center, and therefore the
only way I can deal with them

444
00:37:00.159 --> 00:37:05.280
is through trade and through friendship,
and through love and through whatever appropriate relationship

445
00:37:05.559 --> 00:37:09.079
there is. But I find that
people who take this attitude, take on

446
00:37:09.559 --> 00:37:15.199
philosophy seriously, and have this profound
respect for their own life and the importance

447
00:37:15.239 --> 00:37:19.079
of their own life, and want
to make their life the best life that

448
00:37:19.079 --> 00:37:22.480
it can be, actually have a
very very benevolent view of other people,

449
00:37:22.960 --> 00:37:28.360
treat them really really well because they
realize how much value they can get in

450
00:37:28.440 --> 00:37:32.760
return. Now saying all that,
some people are really really bad. Some

451
00:37:32.840 --> 00:37:38.239
people do you harm, And one
thing OBJECTIVESM teaches you is stay away from

452
00:37:38.239 --> 00:37:44.840
those people. Don't feel a duty
to interact with people who are harmful to

453
00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:49.719
you. Don't feel a duty to
write a check to that sibling of yours

454
00:37:49.760 --> 00:37:52.480
who's a complete loser who will never
make anything of their life and is bleaching

455
00:37:52.559 --> 00:37:57.320
off of you. You don't owe
them anything, you know, and in

456
00:37:57.360 --> 00:38:00.800
that sense, it could even be
your parents in a sense, don't owe

457
00:38:00.800 --> 00:38:05.599
your parents anything beyond what you know
what they gave you. If they gave

458
00:38:05.639 --> 00:38:09.000
you love, and they give you
a nice up bringing and a nice then

459
00:38:09.159 --> 00:38:14.119
yeah, I mean, hopefully you
love them and you can repay them in

460
00:38:14.119 --> 00:38:17.519
a sense. But if your parents
allows the parents, you don't owe them

461
00:38:17.519 --> 00:38:22.800
because of blood or because of genes. So it objectivism and this whole approach

462
00:38:22.880 --> 00:38:28.599
of being self interested. It is
all about judging people out there and evaluating

463
00:38:28.679 --> 00:38:30.480
them. Are they good for me? Are they're bad for me? Stay

464
00:38:30.519 --> 00:38:34.519
away from people who are bad for
you, and embrace people who are good

465
00:38:34.559 --> 00:38:37.800
for you. Now, it turns
out that at least at a superficial level,

466
00:38:37.840 --> 00:38:42.760
almost over most people are good for
you. And then there were a

467
00:38:42.800 --> 00:38:45.199
few people who are really good for
you and you want to be friends.

468
00:38:45.599 --> 00:38:47.360
And then there's one or two people
that you really are going to love and

469
00:38:49.039 --> 00:38:52.199
they're special, and you know at
the peak of that is romantic love.

470
00:38:52.280 --> 00:38:59.159
So you know, judging people is
important and having a high key of relationships

471
00:38:59.280 --> 00:39:02.119
is important. You don't treat everybody
the same. I am made with Jacky

472
00:39:02.159 --> 00:39:08.639
Gellatianism and she rejects sacrifice or self
sac Yeah, yeah, yeah, everything

473
00:39:08.679 --> 00:39:12.599
you're saying. Um, I mean, it's just it's makes me think of

474
00:39:12.960 --> 00:39:15.920
Howard Rourke, right, It's it
really is. And so one of my

475
00:39:15.559 --> 00:39:21.800
one of my questions is around kind
of trying to help us understand objectivism through

476
00:39:22.039 --> 00:39:25.880
iron Rand's works, Like how does
she go about relating a portraying that the

477
00:39:27.039 --> 00:39:30.679
very things you're saying within her four
novels and her essays with four levels are

478
00:39:30.719 --> 00:39:32.239
probably known the most. But yeah, i'd love to that you'll take on

479
00:39:32.320 --> 00:39:37.880
how she actually pushes that vein of
thought out through her pages. Well,

480
00:39:37.960 --> 00:39:43.400
I mean, it's very clear in
her novels. These ideas are very clear

481
00:39:43.440 --> 00:39:47.280
in her novels. Howard work is
the is the hero of the fountain Head.

482
00:39:47.360 --> 00:39:52.480
He is an architect, and from
the beginning, from the first line

483
00:39:52.679 --> 00:39:57.519
where Howard which is Howard Work laughs, it is clear that here is a

484
00:39:57.599 --> 00:40:01.800
man who is who is complete in
control of his life, who knows what

485
00:40:01.960 --> 00:40:07.199
his values are. He's trying to
understand the world. He doesn't quite understand

486
00:40:07.239 --> 00:40:08.559
the world. He does by the
end of the novel, but he's struggling

487
00:40:08.599 --> 00:40:14.480
to understand other people. But in
terms of himself and what he wants and

488
00:40:14.599 --> 00:40:19.039
what his values are, he is
focused on that. He understands it,

489
00:40:19.320 --> 00:40:24.360
and he pursues those values, you
know, ruthlessly, without compromise. He

490
00:40:24.519 --> 00:40:29.360
never uses people, he never he's
never allows himself to be used by other

491
00:40:29.440 --> 00:40:35.760
people. He has complete integrity,
and it's integrity in ways that people often

492
00:40:35.880 --> 00:40:42.440
surprise when it comes to man because
people associate and this is part of part

493
00:40:42.480 --> 00:40:45.880
of the realm I think evil in
the culture that we live in, people

494
00:40:46.000 --> 00:40:51.559
associate self interest and selfishness with money. If I say him self interest,

495
00:40:51.639 --> 00:40:53.559
oh you're just greedy. He just
want lots of money. Now, maybe

496
00:40:53.599 --> 00:40:58.119
I do want a lot of money, but that isn't my defining characteristic.

497
00:40:58.239 --> 00:41:00.599
That isn't what being self to mean. Being self interested to mean. I

498
00:41:00.679 --> 00:41:04.559
want to live the best life that
I can live. Money might be a

499
00:41:04.639 --> 00:41:07.679
part of that. It has to
be a part of that, no matter

500
00:41:07.760 --> 00:41:09.880
what, because you have to survive. Money is essential for survival. But

501
00:41:10.119 --> 00:41:14.239
is that the only thing that's important
for somebody who is self interested? Of

502
00:41:14.280 --> 00:41:16.159
course not, that would be ridiculous. Money's just a means, it's a

503
00:41:16.239 --> 00:41:22.679
tool. So for how to work. What's really important to him is his

504
00:41:22.840 --> 00:41:27.840
integrity, his autistic, steatic integrity. He wants to build buildings. He's

505
00:41:27.840 --> 00:41:34.559
an architect the way he believes they
should be built that are consistent with his

506
00:41:34.760 --> 00:41:38.599
vision of architecture. And there's a
scene in a novel where he has offered

507
00:41:38.840 --> 00:41:45.599
he's struggling, he has no clients, he's making no money, he has

508
00:41:45.760 --> 00:41:50.079
nothing, and he's offered this unbelievably
lucrative job. He's going to build this

509
00:41:50.400 --> 00:41:55.639
skyscraper of a bank and he's gonna
get rich. And all they want is

510
00:41:55.719 --> 00:42:00.559
fame. To compromise on some elements
in his designed just put in some Greek

511
00:42:00.599 --> 00:42:07.800
columns where he doesn't believe they should
be Greek columns. And he says no,

512
00:42:07.800 --> 00:42:13.519
and people go. And I Rance
point is, that's what selfishness means.

513
00:42:15.360 --> 00:42:21.559
Selfishness means sticking to your principles.
Selfishness means pursuing your values. Money

514
00:42:22.519 --> 00:42:28.480
money is a means for facilitating this
trade. But if what I'm getting in

515
00:42:28.599 --> 00:42:36.000
return undermines my moral principles, my
esthetic principles, it undermines who I am

516
00:42:36.079 --> 00:42:39.239
as a human being, there's no
price for that. Give me gazillion dollars,

517
00:42:39.280 --> 00:42:43.000
I'm not giving you that. So, no matter how much they offer

518
00:42:43.039 --> 00:42:45.679
him, how it works not building
a building he doesn't believe in, and

519
00:42:45.840 --> 00:42:51.639
he'd rather it turns out work in
a quarry, in manual labor than design

520
00:42:51.719 --> 00:42:54.920
buildings he doesn't believe in. And
that is that if people just got this

521
00:42:55.119 --> 00:43:00.599
one thing out of the valehead,
right, that's what selfishness really means.

522
00:43:01.119 --> 00:43:08.119
It means really understanding what your principles
are, really understanding what your life requires

523
00:43:08.159 --> 00:43:14.800
and what your happiness requires, and
living by that. It's not about I

524
00:43:14.880 --> 00:43:19.760
don't know, just just money grubbing, which is kind of the attitude people

525
00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:23.599
assume selfishnessess. So so that's in
the Fountain. It's the Fountain that's very

526
00:43:23.679 --> 00:43:30.400
much focused on the presentation of individual
morality and how it plays out in a

527
00:43:30.480 --> 00:43:37.119
man's life and what success looks like
when you pursue kind of this morality.

528
00:43:37.159 --> 00:43:38.840
And you know, I don't want
to give the novel away, but so

529
00:43:39.039 --> 00:43:45.440
I encourage people to read it.
A Was Shrugged then is a bigger book

530
00:43:45.480 --> 00:43:50.480
in a sense. It deals more
with not just the individual, also the

531
00:43:50.559 --> 00:43:57.519
individual. And they are striking examples
of individuals there that face very similar kind

532
00:43:57.559 --> 00:44:01.000
of alternatives as work does and and
I think choose properly and some who don't

533
00:44:01.039 --> 00:44:06.679
and stuff for the consequences. But
here it's a it's kind of a society

534
00:44:06.800 --> 00:44:15.559
wide lesson it's uh, it's more
um. The theme is broader and deeper

535
00:44:15.639 --> 00:44:21.679
than than individual morality. Really,
when Ironmand was asked what the theme of

536
00:44:21.719 --> 00:44:24.079
Atlas Shrug was, she said,
it was the role of reason in man's

537
00:44:24.119 --> 00:44:28.880
life, the role of the mind
in man's life. And you can see

538
00:44:28.960 --> 00:44:31.960
what happens when somebody is committed to
reason, and when somebody abandoned reason,

539
00:44:32.079 --> 00:44:37.800
and when society respects reason, when
society abandoned reason, and and it's all

540
00:44:37.880 --> 00:44:42.199
geared to that. And people usually
think of Atlas Shrugg is a political book,

541
00:44:43.039 --> 00:44:46.239
but it's not. It's about epistemology
and and that's that's crazy and and

542
00:44:46.360 --> 00:44:51.719
but that's that's how Ironrand thought.
And it's an exciting book. It's a

543
00:44:51.880 --> 00:44:58.599
it's it's an exciting book. Uh, that is so relevant to life in

544
00:44:58.679 --> 00:45:02.920
the world today. And and what
you see there is a reason versus unreasoned.

545
00:45:05.320 --> 00:45:07.679
Living your life for yourself versus not
is a great character. And Atlas

546
00:45:07.760 --> 00:45:17.679
Shrugged read and who who is struggling? He is He lives kind of his

547
00:45:17.840 --> 00:45:22.119
family life. He lives on the
morality of altruism and the morality of sacrifice,

548
00:45:22.119 --> 00:45:28.760
and the morality of his family owns
him in a sense. He's guilty.

549
00:45:28.800 --> 00:45:32.119
He feels guilty for not giving them
enough but he doesn't really want to

550
00:45:32.119 --> 00:45:36.159
give them that much, and he
feels guilty enough spending enough time with his

551
00:45:36.239 --> 00:45:37.239
wife, but he doesn't really want
to spend that much time with her.

552
00:45:37.840 --> 00:45:40.519
At what he really wants to do
his work. And he loves his work.

553
00:45:40.559 --> 00:45:44.719
He's passionate about his work. He's
completely self interested when it comes to

554
00:45:44.800 --> 00:45:51.400
his work. But he but he
thinks that's that's material and low. He

555
00:45:51.519 --> 00:45:54.239
thinks sex is material and low at
the beginning of the novel, and he

556
00:45:54.360 --> 00:46:00.239
has to learn he has to learn
that no, this is the best in

557
00:46:00.400 --> 00:46:04.039
him. And if he needs to
apply this the principle that he applies at

558
00:46:04.079 --> 00:46:08.159
his wook two sects to his relationship
with his family, to every aspect of

559
00:46:08.239 --> 00:46:13.280
his life, and that's the way
he changes throughout the novel is one of

560
00:46:13.320 --> 00:46:16.559
the most interesting features of the novel. But again it illustrates every aspect of

561
00:46:16.639 --> 00:46:22.639
her philosophy, facts, reason,
individualism, a morality of self interest.

562
00:46:22.840 --> 00:46:27.760
So she does that throughout the novel, through all her characters and through the

563
00:46:27.840 --> 00:46:30.920
plot, and then of course in
a nonfiction you know, she's got an

564
00:46:30.039 --> 00:46:36.519
essay the Objectives Ethics where she talks
about selfishness. She even talks about why

565
00:46:36.599 --> 00:46:44.039
she calls it selfishness and and she
so she's these are more philosophical, it

566
00:46:44.079 --> 00:46:47.079
says, now, granted, the
philosophical, but they're not written for philosophers.

567
00:46:47.280 --> 00:46:52.440
They're written for the layman. And
I think a lot of academic philosopher's

568
00:46:52.519 --> 00:46:54.800
rejection of her has to do with
the fact that she didn't write their language.

569
00:46:55.000 --> 00:46:58.239
Right. You pick up a philosophy
book, it's hard to understand.

570
00:46:58.639 --> 00:47:02.280
Ironman is easy to understand, and
because she's writing in your language, she's

571
00:47:02.320 --> 00:47:06.719
not easy to fully grasp. A
lot of our stuff. You have to

572
00:47:06.760 --> 00:47:10.199
read more than once. But the
language is the language that every in the

573
00:47:10.519 --> 00:47:16.920
chain of logic is understandable, and
it's in English, it's not in philosophees.

574
00:47:22.079 --> 00:47:27.639
Will you support when belief dies?
Your support enables us to keep having

575
00:47:27.719 --> 00:47:32.320
these conversations and improving everything that we
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576
00:47:32.400 --> 00:47:37.360
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577
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578
00:47:43.880 --> 00:47:47.519
Secondly, would you share this episode
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579
00:47:49.159 --> 00:47:52.679
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580
00:47:52.760 --> 00:47:58.280
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581
00:47:58.360 --> 00:48:01.960
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582
00:48:02.400 --> 00:48:07.840
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583
00:48:07.920 --> 00:48:13.719
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584
00:48:13.760 --> 00:48:17.440
the description, and thank you for
supporting the show. Right, let's get

585
00:48:17.480 --> 00:48:25.199
back to this week's conversation. Yeah, it's I really reappreciate her style.

586
00:48:27.679 --> 00:48:31.079
Yeah. I also interestingly read the
books in probably the reverse order and that

587
00:48:31.119 --> 00:48:34.239
they published it. No, it
was the reverse orders. Sorry, read

588
00:48:34.239 --> 00:48:37.519
at the Shrug, then The Fountainhead, then Anthem, then We the Living.

589
00:48:37.559 --> 00:48:42.559
I'm actually halfway through with The Living
at the moment, finding it devastating.

590
00:48:42.639 --> 00:48:47.639
Actually it's such a so I've read
things like The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander

591
00:48:47.679 --> 00:48:52.159
Stolschitzkin, and that's all about kind
of what life was like in these concentration

592
00:48:52.239 --> 00:48:55.639
camps essentially within Soviet Russia at the
time. And I've actually found that We

593
00:48:55.760 --> 00:49:00.679
the Living seems to be providing me
more of ada on the ground what communism

594
00:49:00.800 --> 00:49:05.039
look like and how things have stripped
away from people and the fact that they're

595
00:49:05.440 --> 00:49:07.679
they're eating food and trying to get
food and having to go hungry and then

596
00:49:07.760 --> 00:49:12.480
trying to and again it's you know, Kira, I believe her name is

597
00:49:12.519 --> 00:49:15.719
the sort of main character within this
novel, at least currently is trying to

598
00:49:15.840 --> 00:49:20.159
live her life in this very kind
of self I want to go in this

599
00:49:20.280 --> 00:49:22.599
direction, and I want to build
bridges. That's what she's trying to do.

600
00:49:22.760 --> 00:49:27.760
And she's having to do that and
also live within this sort of regime

601
00:49:27.800 --> 00:49:31.159
which is completely counter to who she
is a person. How would you encourage

602
00:49:31.199 --> 00:49:36.480
people to engage with her books?
Would you say to kind of start at

603
00:49:36.480 --> 00:49:37.440
the beginning and work at the end. Would you encourage and to start with

604
00:49:37.480 --> 00:49:40.760
something like the fountain Head first?
Maybe No, I would encourage you to

605
00:49:40.760 --> 00:49:45.039
start with the farantin heerd I read
out a shrug first, and then the

606
00:49:45.079 --> 00:49:47.639
farm Head, and then Anthem and
with the Living so like you, but

607
00:49:47.840 --> 00:49:52.960
I would encourage them to have started
with the fantin Head if they really,

608
00:49:52.079 --> 00:49:55.760
really really don't like fiction for some
reason which I don't understand. But if

609
00:49:55.760 --> 00:50:00.159
they don't, then they can start
with virtue of selfish us so capitalism unknown

610
00:50:00.199 --> 00:50:04.599
ideal and I agree with you.
I also Rich Chel Jennison, and I

611
00:50:04.760 --> 00:50:10.280
find I find with a Living in
some ways much more powerful because it sets

612
00:50:10.360 --> 00:50:15.000
up this amazing young woman who just
wants to live her life, but she's

613
00:50:15.079 --> 00:50:20.679
very rational and very thoughtful about it, and the obstacle she runs across,

614
00:50:20.880 --> 00:50:24.719
and then the men that she falls
in love with and the conflicts that that

615
00:50:24.960 --> 00:50:30.400
creates, and all she's trying to
do is is live her life and she

616
00:50:30.559 --> 00:50:37.039
can't. And then how this system
affects different people, like she won't give

617
00:50:37.119 --> 00:50:39.719
up, but how does it affect
the other people? And how does it

618
00:50:39.880 --> 00:50:45.400
destroy not just destroy them im materially, but how does it destroy them spiritually?

619
00:50:45.480 --> 00:50:50.039
How does it destroy the capacity to
live and to enjoy life? And

620
00:50:50.079 --> 00:50:52.880
I think she doesn't a magnificent job
at that. But I would definitely start

621
00:50:52.920 --> 00:50:57.360
with The found Head. I think
it gives it's it's the most personal novel

622
00:50:58.679 --> 00:51:01.519
for the reader, I think,
and it's the most engaging. And then

623
00:51:02.679 --> 00:51:07.840
you know, if you really into
politics, let's say, or in politics

624
00:51:07.920 --> 00:51:09.239
and far I see, then you
could start with The Without Shrugged and then

625
00:51:09.280 --> 00:51:13.480
read defunt in Head. But I
think for most people I would say start

626
00:51:13.559 --> 00:51:16.480
with The Found in Head and then
and then got out as shrugged. And

627
00:51:17.000 --> 00:51:22.400
in all four of these books,
when a character, whether they be living

628
00:51:22.559 --> 00:51:27.880
through a sort of objectivist lends themselves
or not, when they see somebody who's

629
00:51:27.920 --> 00:51:32.000
who is living with self at the
center they're they're often describing how they appear

630
00:51:32.039 --> 00:51:39.320
to them, and iron Rand uses
very almost mathematical or maybe geometrical or masculine

631
00:51:39.400 --> 00:51:43.199
in a sort of way language to
the finally talks about the lines of their

632
00:51:43.239 --> 00:51:45.960
face and how their head was up
Brian, how their back was straight.

633
00:51:45.679 --> 00:51:49.960
Um. She talks about the figures
of the of the ladies and sort of

634
00:51:50.000 --> 00:51:52.639
how their legs were positioned and things. It's very it's such interesting language.

635
00:51:52.639 --> 00:51:58.159
I've not seen that anywhere else.
But she seems to almost be imbuing these

636
00:51:58.280 --> 00:52:04.079
characters with definitive, complete imagery,
whereas other characters she'll mention the sort of

637
00:52:04.119 --> 00:52:07.480
shoes they were wearing, all the
scuffs on that jacket, whereas these characters

638
00:52:07.559 --> 00:52:10.159
are full people in a sort of
way. I want if you could speak

639
00:52:10.159 --> 00:52:13.079
to that a little bit for us. Yeah, I mean, I think

640
00:52:13.239 --> 00:52:19.119
I think she's an artist and she's
trying to through the way she's describing these

641
00:52:19.239 --> 00:52:22.360
people and the way they stand,
and the way they walk and the way

642
00:52:22.400 --> 00:52:27.320
they carry themselves to tell you something
about their character. She can't, she

643
00:52:27.519 --> 00:52:31.239
can't invest in every one of the
characters the full time to teach you,

644
00:52:31.480 --> 00:52:35.360
to tell you about them. She
can only do that to a few characters

645
00:52:35.440 --> 00:52:37.599
were the heroes of this story.
But she wants you to get a sense

646
00:52:37.679 --> 00:52:44.239
of the character. And we all
know that often we get strong, first

647
00:52:44.440 --> 00:52:49.239
and often correct lasting impressions just by
looking at somebody how they dress, or

648
00:52:49.280 --> 00:52:53.239
how they carry themselves, or how
they walk. You know, I do

649
00:52:53.400 --> 00:52:59.440
think love at first sight exists because
we can connect in some way, very

650
00:52:59.519 --> 00:53:04.440
quickly and very directly with those kind
of things in other people. So she's

651
00:53:04.920 --> 00:53:09.199
she is activating that. So she's
trying to activate your, uh, you

652
00:53:09.280 --> 00:53:14.519
know, maybe a certain perception of
what masculinity is and a certain perception of

653
00:53:14.599 --> 00:53:21.079
what femininity is, and also a
certain perception of what a horrible people person

654
00:53:21.159 --> 00:53:24.320
would look like or what they would
do and how they would be maybe bent

655
00:53:24.440 --> 00:53:29.320
over, and maybe they're particularly you
know, ugly. She's not saying everybody

656
00:53:29.320 --> 00:53:32.280
who's ugly as a bad person,
but she's using it as an autistic mechanism

657
00:53:32.920 --> 00:53:37.599
to activate a certain emotion a certain
context for the reader, um and and

658
00:53:37.880 --> 00:53:45.079
and she wants to present her heroes
heroically. It's art. It's an art,

659
00:53:45.559 --> 00:53:50.159
you know. I think she agreed
with with Aristotle. Art should present

660
00:53:51.079 --> 00:53:57.880
reality as it should and could be
right, but should and could. So

661
00:53:58.320 --> 00:54:05.039
she's trying to present people as as
as as heroic and therefore having the statue

662
00:54:05.719 --> 00:54:09.119
of hues, and she had a
very definitive view of what she thought masculinity

663
00:54:09.159 --> 00:54:15.719
and femininity you were as an artist
and how to convey Then, of course,

664
00:54:15.760 --> 00:54:20.360
as an artist you have to have
some insight into human psychology to be

665
00:54:20.480 --> 00:54:24.480
able to be able to really project
your characters effectively. And we've kind of

666
00:54:24.519 --> 00:54:29.760
talked about the sort of vision of
the perfect man and her sort of research

667
00:54:29.840 --> 00:54:32.920
around what that looked like. You
mentioned, obviously, nietzsure, the idea

668
00:54:32.960 --> 00:54:37.679
of kind of superman or kind of
yeah, beyond good and evil, almost

669
00:54:37.719 --> 00:54:40.079
as a sort of power, the
power to will. And so I think

670
00:54:40.079 --> 00:54:43.760
it'd be interested to kind of talk
a little bit about iron round then around

671
00:54:43.800 --> 00:54:47.920
the sort of that, the idea
of masculinity and the perfect man and how

672
00:54:49.440 --> 00:54:52.920
she does portray that, because there
does seem to be a man isn't always

673
00:54:52.000 --> 00:54:57.960
used necessarily in a sort of humanity
everybody, but sometimes it really is kind

674
00:54:58.000 --> 00:55:00.559
of actually a male figure that she
kind of writing about here. And for

675
00:55:00.639 --> 00:55:02.480
some people that can't be a bit
of a turn off, but I think

676
00:55:02.480 --> 00:55:07.360
it could just address it to kind
of help people understand what they should expect.

677
00:55:07.239 --> 00:55:09.880
Sure, so first, she does
use you know, writing, she

678
00:55:09.960 --> 00:55:15.519
does use man to represent humanity.
This was not different than pretty much everybody

679
00:55:15.559 --> 00:55:21.880
else at the time. This is
pretty standard English at the time, you

680
00:55:22.000 --> 00:55:24.159
know. The it's only in modern
times that we do he she and all

681
00:55:24.239 --> 00:55:30.960
this stuff in order to cover everybody. But she does have she does believe

682
00:55:31.000 --> 00:55:37.800
men and women are different, and
that they have certain psychological differences and that

683
00:55:37.960 --> 00:55:43.199
they have, um, you know, certain differences in how they're oriented.

684
00:55:44.079 --> 00:55:46.480
Um. And you could agree and
disagree with that, but but she definitely

685
00:55:46.559 --> 00:55:51.280
has a particular view of that and
for her and and look, just to

686
00:55:51.360 --> 00:55:55.719
put this in perspective, the hero
of Alice Shrugged, I mean the one

687
00:55:57.599 --> 00:56:00.440
the hero of Alice Shrugged in the
sense that the one written most about in

688
00:56:00.519 --> 00:56:05.599
the book is a woman, Dagney
Taggert, who runs a railroad. Now

689
00:56:05.679 --> 00:56:09.360
this is nineteen fifty seven, i'mand
a shot at any glass ceiling that might

690
00:56:09.400 --> 00:56:15.440
have existed. She plays as a
woman as clearly the most competent person on

691
00:56:15.559 --> 00:56:20.920
planet Earth to run the most important
railroad on planet Earth, and she does

692
00:56:21.000 --> 00:56:25.079
it efficiently, efficaciously. She's a
negotiator, she's tough, she's amazing.

693
00:56:25.280 --> 00:56:32.639
Dagney is just amazing as a business
person. But she's a woman, And

694
00:56:32.840 --> 00:56:38.800
for rand there's something different between a
woman who's a business person and a man

695
00:56:38.800 --> 00:56:43.599
who's a business person in terms of
their personal life, in terms of the

696
00:56:43.719 --> 00:56:50.599
psychological life, in terms of she's
feminine, and she exudes femininity when she's

697
00:56:50.639 --> 00:56:52.199
at a part of you, when
she's in a social environment, when she's

698
00:56:52.239 --> 00:57:00.559
having sex, and men, while
they might not be as competent as in

699
00:57:00.679 --> 00:57:06.559
business, in a different setting,
they exude masculinity. So for her saying

700
00:57:06.599 --> 00:57:10.119
somebody, something's femine, something's masculine, it's not a judgment. It's a

701
00:57:10.199 --> 00:57:15.199
positive. It's a positive to be
masculine, it's a positive to be feminine.

702
00:57:15.519 --> 00:57:20.960
Both are both are positives. Um, So there's nothing infery about being

703
00:57:21.199 --> 00:57:28.960
a woman. But she does have
this view that men that masculinity is an

704
00:57:29.039 --> 00:57:37.440
orientation towards reality towards conquering nature.
It's it's towards discovery out there. And

705
00:57:37.559 --> 00:57:45.599
that femininity as a as a as
a psychological characteristic is oriented towards a man,

706
00:57:45.239 --> 00:57:53.480
towards um finding a hero and admiring
a hero. So there is that

707
00:57:53.719 --> 00:58:00.239
psychological orientation that she identifies with masculine
and feminity. Again, you can agree

708
00:58:00.239 --> 00:58:01.960
with that or not. I think
still think you'll love their heroes, and

709
00:58:02.119 --> 00:58:07.800
particularly when you realize that in spite
of Dagny's orientation towards looking for a hero,

710
00:58:07.039 --> 00:58:10.719
a man who is a hero to
love, she's also a heroine.

711
00:58:12.679 --> 00:58:17.000
She's a superhero really, and and
she's the most competent railroad executive in the

712
00:58:17.039 --> 00:58:25.159
world. So um So, I
think people love the characters in these novels

713
00:58:25.280 --> 00:58:34.000
and love this representation. It's very
unmodern, it's very non modern in a

714
00:58:34.119 --> 00:58:38.239
sense of the modernity is so much
about there's no differences between men and women.

715
00:58:38.320 --> 00:58:43.440
No, there are differences, and
we should celebrate. Yeah, I

716
00:58:43.800 --> 00:58:49.119
totally agree. I think they're fantastic, the novels and that mantra and I've

717
00:58:49.159 --> 00:58:52.480
got three more, four more questions. The sort of next one is around

718
00:58:52.559 --> 00:58:59.039
I guess kind of an iron Rand
end of life US. It's often viewed

719
00:58:59.199 --> 00:59:02.480
that if this is true or not, that that when somebody's living out this

720
00:59:02.599 --> 00:59:07.480
sort of objectivist mindset, that as
they get towards the end of their life,

721
00:59:07.559 --> 00:59:10.760
because they no longer to necessarily do
everything that they wants to be able

722
00:59:10.760 --> 00:59:15.920
to do, that sort of happiness
begins to subside because maybe they've not built

723
00:59:15.960 --> 00:59:17.800
the family around and they wanted,
or they've not built the support networks,

724
00:59:17.840 --> 00:59:21.920
etc. Etc. Because they've been
go, go go. And I thought

725
00:59:21.920 --> 00:59:23.800
it'd be interesting you to kind of
get your take on that that towards the

726
00:59:23.880 --> 00:59:27.599
end of iron Man's life she was
maybe kind of sad or disappointed that it

727
00:59:27.679 --> 00:59:30.280
hadn't been everything that she thought it
could be. I don't know whether that's

728
00:59:30.320 --> 00:59:32.679
true, but I think it'd be
helpful to kind of view objectivism through that

729
00:59:32.800 --> 00:59:36.599
sort of final days stage where people
do get to the end and kind of

730
00:59:36.719 --> 00:59:39.280
begin to reflect back as well.
So I don't think that was true of

731
00:59:39.360 --> 00:59:43.159
iron Man. I think she might
have been sad and by the fact that

732
00:59:43.280 --> 00:59:46.880
the world did not live up to
her expectations, that is, that the

733
00:59:46.960 --> 00:59:51.440
world was not as good as she
thought it could be, and that it

734
00:59:51.519 --> 00:59:57.760
did not responded to her quite as
positively as she had hoped they would,

735
00:59:58.719 --> 01:00:01.639
despite of being best sellers. In
spite of all those success and monetary success

736
01:00:01.719 --> 01:00:06.719
and esteem. I mean, she
was on TV, she was in the

737
01:00:06.760 --> 01:00:10.920
White House, she was I mean, she was a real celebrity. At

738
01:00:10.960 --> 01:00:14.880
the end of the day, the
world did not just embrace the philosophy and

739
01:00:14.960 --> 01:00:17.800
run with it. It was still
very controversial throughout her life. So I

740
01:00:17.880 --> 01:00:22.360
think she was a little disappointed in
other people in the world. But I

741
01:00:22.480 --> 01:00:27.119
think she embraced the life that she
had lived. She had lived, she

742
01:00:27.360 --> 01:00:30.280
thought, and I think she did
the life of one of her characters from

743
01:00:30.320 --> 01:00:35.079
the novel. She had lived a
heroic life, a successful life. She

744
01:00:35.159 --> 01:00:38.559
had done everything she had set out
to do. I don't think she had

745
01:00:38.559 --> 01:00:43.639
any big regrets in terms of what
she had done. And I think,

746
01:00:44.079 --> 01:00:49.159
look, how what happens at the
end of your life is very much going

747
01:00:49.239 --> 01:00:52.840
to be dictated about how you live
your life. If you indeed take your

748
01:00:52.880 --> 01:00:57.199
life seriously, if you indeed pursue
your values, if you're thoughtful and and

749
01:00:58.079 --> 01:01:00.159
and you know, make your life
the best that it can be, and

750
01:01:00.280 --> 01:01:05.480
make it interesting and make it enjoyable, and make it and you're happy and

751
01:01:05.960 --> 01:01:09.519
you're thriving and successful and flourishing,
and you embrace this life. Then at

752
01:01:09.519 --> 01:01:13.760
the end of life, I think
you look back and you know I'm not

753
01:01:13.920 --> 01:01:17.360
young anymore. You look back and
you say, wow, cool. You

754
01:01:17.440 --> 01:01:22.960
know I lived. I lived a
good life. I did an amazing number

755
01:01:22.960 --> 01:01:24.800
of things. I tried an amazing
number of things. I succeeded, I

756
01:01:24.920 --> 01:01:30.880
failed, but you know it was
I You know it was a well lived

757
01:01:30.000 --> 01:01:32.639
life. That that's what you wanted
to end, right. You want to

758
01:01:32.679 --> 01:01:36.559
say I didn't waste my time.
I didn't just sit around. I didn't

759
01:01:36.599 --> 01:01:40.679
just drift. I didn't just follow
the crowd. I didn't just follow orders.

760
01:01:40.920 --> 01:01:45.239
I lived. I used my mind
to shape my life. Could have

761
01:01:45.360 --> 01:01:50.199
done better here, could have done
better there too. You know what difference

762
01:01:50.199 --> 01:01:52.599
does it make? It's too late
now, probably surely, and you can

763
01:01:52.639 --> 01:01:58.639
always learn. And if I had
the knowledge today that I do when I

764
01:01:58.800 --> 01:02:01.880
was twenty, yes, and there
are obviously things you would change, But

765
01:02:02.840 --> 01:02:07.320
that's not the point. The point
is, um, did I do the

766
01:02:07.400 --> 01:02:10.000
best that I could do when I
did it? And did did I did

767
01:02:10.079 --> 01:02:15.320
I? Did I achieve flourishing?
And did I make the effort to make

768
01:02:15.400 --> 01:02:20.320
my love great and if the answers
yes, then hey, that's all you

769
01:02:20.400 --> 01:02:24.000
can That's all you can do in
life in the end, and death is

770
01:02:24.079 --> 01:02:29.119
kind of sad, but we know
it has to happen. So Soviet.

771
01:02:30.679 --> 01:02:36.559
So the next questions around sort of
her early days in in the US when

772
01:02:36.599 --> 01:02:40.800
she'd come over. Um, she
obviously left Soviet Russia and she moved into

773
01:02:42.679 --> 01:02:47.559
theoretically kind of free America, And
I think from what I can tell,

774
01:02:47.679 --> 01:02:53.559
she was quite shocked by how easily
swayed individuals were within America towards kind of

775
01:02:53.599 --> 01:02:59.119
socialist ideas, and that then affected
her writing, affected obviously the books that

776
01:02:59.159 --> 01:03:01.800
she produced. That there was a
sort of domino effect from that. But

777
01:03:02.159 --> 01:03:05.559
I thought, it obviously get you
are the experts, it'd be good to

778
01:03:05.559 --> 01:03:09.280
get your taken kind of how obviously
she fled that she came to freedom theoretically

779
01:03:09.360 --> 01:03:13.960
what she believed to be freedom,
and then she experienced something. Did that

780
01:03:14.159 --> 01:03:19.920
experience then push her into exploring objectivism
for herself further but also then trying to

781
01:03:20.000 --> 01:03:24.559
help us as now her readers also
understand the broader landscape. Yeah, so

782
01:03:24.639 --> 01:03:29.920
I definitely think she came to the
United States, and was disappointed at the

783
01:03:30.079 --> 01:03:35.280
level at which Americans understood the freedom
that they have, the willingness, you

784
01:03:35.360 --> 01:03:37.880
know, she came here just before
If the R was elected, and then

785
01:03:37.280 --> 01:03:43.159
she saw what if the R did
and to really move America away from capitalism

786
01:03:43.199 --> 01:03:46.360
and away from freedom. So she
was disappointed in the willingness of America to

787
01:03:46.440 --> 01:03:50.960
embrace socialism. In the nineteen thirties, when We the Living came out,

788
01:03:51.400 --> 01:03:58.280
she found so many American intellectuals thought
communism was fantastic and rejected her book because

789
01:03:58.480 --> 01:04:01.800
how can you be critical of communism? It's amazing, um and and and

790
01:04:02.039 --> 01:04:06.679
so that definitely, very very much
disappointed her. And I think ultimately she

791
01:04:08.079 --> 01:04:13.440
was motivating and educating Americans in what
they had and the value of what they

792
01:04:13.519 --> 01:04:17.599
had and and and encourage them not
to give it up and and and but

793
01:04:18.360 --> 01:04:21.599
I think a primary motivation, as
I said, to develop a philosophy was

794
01:04:23.199 --> 01:04:27.840
to write her arts, to write
her novels, and to elevate the individual

795
01:04:27.960 --> 01:04:30.840
and to give the individual something to
look up at and something to to to

796
01:04:32.000 --> 01:04:38.480
um uh, you know, to
to really help people, inspire people to

797
01:04:38.559 --> 01:04:42.039
live their lives the best, the
best lives that they can live. But

798
01:04:42.159 --> 01:04:45.599
then it became clear that she had
to articulate that philosophy more explicitly, and

799
01:04:45.639 --> 01:04:48.400
it wasn't just enough in the novels. And I think she did set out

800
01:04:48.519 --> 01:04:55.199
to in a sense, save America
and save liberty and save freedom and philosophically

801
01:04:55.360 --> 01:05:00.280
complete the work that was started by
philosophers and the Enlightenment and really ground reason

802
01:05:00.400 --> 01:05:05.679
philosophically, and ground egoism philosophically,
and and and then ground capitalism is a

803
01:05:05.719 --> 01:05:10.800
consequence philosophically and ground freedom. So
that was definitely part of what she was

804
01:05:10.880 --> 01:05:15.159
trying to do and what she was
hoping to do, and what she devoted

805
01:05:15.320 --> 01:05:18.679
much of her life, I think, particularly after the novels, but even

806
01:05:18.719 --> 01:05:25.159
while she was writing the novels.
Two is to achieving that that philosophical completeness,

807
01:05:25.239 --> 01:05:48.440
that philosophical grounding of these ideas.
Yeah, and then you see those

808
01:05:48.440 --> 01:05:53.760
ideas flourish in her novels. Um, which is beautiful. Um. Okay,

809
01:05:53.800 --> 01:05:55.960
this is the question I'm being very
excited to get to. UM.

810
01:05:56.599 --> 01:06:00.960
So, systems of faith, say, for example, the Catho Church seem

811
01:06:01.039 --> 01:06:06.960
to be antithetical to objectivism. It'd
be interesting to kind of hear from you

812
01:06:08.239 --> 01:06:14.320
why this is and kind of suggests
because because it does suggest that that these

813
01:06:15.360 --> 01:06:18.840
big kind of views of faith are
essentially wrong. So kind of how how

814
01:06:18.960 --> 01:06:23.400
how are they antithetical? And why
does that then suggest that a faith system

815
01:06:23.440 --> 01:06:30.760
isn't isn't correct? Yeah, so
they're really anithetical in every dimension. I

816
01:06:30.880 --> 01:06:34.519
mean, and start with the idea
of a system of faith. What is

817
01:06:34.559 --> 01:06:42.960
faith faces the acceptance of something where
there is no evidence for it. It's

818
01:06:43.000 --> 01:06:45.360
the acceptance of something in spite of
the lack of evidence, the lack of

819
01:06:45.519 --> 01:06:51.000
fact, the lack of reality.
Faith is the antithesis of reason, is

820
01:06:51.039 --> 01:06:57.239
indeed the rejection of reason. It's
saying I don't need facts and reality and

821
01:06:58.199 --> 01:07:02.840
my senses and reason. I just
know, you know, I just know.

822
01:07:03.000 --> 01:07:06.920
How do you know? I just
know? Revelation, God spoke to

823
01:07:08.000 --> 01:07:11.760
me, whatever. But in the
end of the day, it's all emotion.

824
01:07:12.440 --> 01:07:15.280
All that's left is emotion. Once
you reject reason, you're left with

825
01:07:15.360 --> 01:07:18.199
emotion. So how do you know
that God said it to you? Well,

826
01:07:18.280 --> 01:07:21.880
you hear it in you know,
you emote it. You don't observe

827
01:07:21.880 --> 01:07:29.360
it out there because it isn't there. So uh so, so faith is

828
01:07:29.599 --> 01:07:35.320
just the the the the manifestation of
an of of emotionalism. It's it's it's

829
01:07:35.400 --> 01:07:45.400
the absence of reason, and objectivism
rejects anything where reason um where you we

830
01:07:45.480 --> 01:07:49.639
put reason aside. Reason is a
means of cognition. Reason is that basic

831
01:07:49.760 --> 01:07:53.920
means a survival. Reason is the
way we know the world, and and

832
01:07:54.159 --> 01:07:58.840
anything that undermines reason needs to be
put aside. And religion undermine's reason.

833
01:07:59.519 --> 01:08:03.639
They can tell you that they believe
in God, that it's rational to believe

834
01:08:03.679 --> 01:08:08.320
in God, but but it's bys. Nobody believes in God because it's rational.

835
01:08:08.800 --> 01:08:11.840
They believe in God because they want
to believe in God because emotionally they

836
01:08:12.039 --> 01:08:17.039
they have committed themselves to believe in
God, they want to for some emotionalist

837
01:08:17.119 --> 01:08:21.119
reason. And then they might rationalize
it with some you know, all the

838
01:08:21.279 --> 01:08:28.079
logical proofs of God, which all
of them have been been shown to be

839
01:08:28.159 --> 01:08:32.479
false by philosophers. As it did
it change any religionous mind, probably,

840
01:08:32.640 --> 01:08:35.279
you know, maybe at the margin, but most people are not convinced by

841
01:08:35.840 --> 01:08:40.560
because it's not about reason, it's
not about logic, it's not about rationality.

842
01:08:41.279 --> 01:08:44.119
So that's the beginning of it,
and really, in a sense,

843
01:08:44.159 --> 01:08:47.720
the end of it, because once
you accept faith, Well, how do

844
01:08:47.840 --> 01:08:53.119
we know what we know? Well, it's written in a book, right,

845
01:08:53.199 --> 01:08:58.520
and for thousands of years until Galileo, even physics was written in a

846
01:08:58.560 --> 01:09:01.279
book. You can challenge that.
So, uh, you know, in

847
01:09:01.920 --> 01:09:05.479
one of the books in the Old
Testament it says that basically the sun goes

848
01:09:05.520 --> 01:09:11.319
around the Earth because God actually stops
the sun from moving across the sky,

849
01:09:13.119 --> 01:09:16.159
so Joshua could win a battle,
so it gets more daylights. You can

850
01:09:16.199 --> 01:09:20.079
win a battle, right, it
stops. You know, it completely contradicts

851
01:09:20.119 --> 01:09:25.800
the laws of physics. Um.
So yeah, but God didn't. God

852
01:09:25.840 --> 01:09:30.199
could do anything according to faith.
Faith is faith is completely open. You

853
01:09:30.239 --> 01:09:32.079
can do anything. Um. But
then Galilo says, well, but you

854
01:09:32.159 --> 01:09:36.279
know, something doesn't go around you
know, the earth, Earth goes around

855
01:09:36.279 --> 01:09:40.640
the sun. And oh wait a
minute, how do you how do you

856
01:09:40.760 --> 01:09:43.239
know that? I use my senses, I use my reason to discover that.

857
01:09:43.920 --> 01:09:46.800
Well, that's the conflict. Faith
says, no, the other way

858
01:09:46.800 --> 01:09:53.960
around. Okay, So so in
some cases we we are going to dismiss

859
01:09:54.000 --> 01:09:58.119
faith and we're going to accept science
because it's so obviously true. Okay,

860
01:09:58.119 --> 01:10:01.079
but what about morality? What's morality
in the Old Testament? What's seven commandments?

861
01:10:02.640 --> 01:10:05.680
Are they explained? Are they justified? Are we told why we should

862
01:10:05.720 --> 01:10:10.319
follow these commandments? No? Why
should you follow the commandments? Because God

863
01:10:10.359 --> 01:10:15.760
sets them? And are there any
cases you wouldn't follow the commandments? Sure?

864
01:10:16.039 --> 01:10:18.399
If God tells me not to follow
them, I won't follow them.

865
01:10:19.600 --> 01:10:29.039
I mean, religion is authoritarianism.
It's an authoritarianism granted to a being that

866
01:10:29.159 --> 01:10:32.960
doesn't exist, which is a very
scary type of authoritarians because then what you

867
01:10:33.039 --> 01:10:38.960
want, what you're afraid of,
is his representatives on earth channeling his will.

868
01:10:39.880 --> 01:10:44.439
And there's no but give me a
reason, Like Abraham doesn't stop and

869
01:10:44.600 --> 01:10:48.960
say kill my son? Why why
would I do that? That's like stupid,

870
01:10:49.239 --> 01:10:54.199
that's like so imral and ridiculous,
and actually, God, it violates

871
01:10:54.239 --> 01:10:58.960
one of your commandments. Now,
the commandments are given after the story of

872
01:10:59.000 --> 01:11:03.560
Abraham, but you know, I
think even pre in the Commandments, everybody

873
01:11:03.640 --> 01:11:09.560
understood the murder was wrong. He
doesn't do that. He doesn't question God,

874
01:11:09.600 --> 01:11:13.800
he doesn't ask him. And the
reason Abraham is a moral hero to

875
01:11:14.119 --> 01:11:18.000
Jews, Christians and Muslims, he's
the one that unites them all, is

876
01:11:18.039 --> 01:11:21.600
because he says, yes, God, I'll do whatever you say, and

877
01:11:21.680 --> 01:11:27.960
he takes his son and he tries
to murder him. Right, it's pure

878
01:11:27.960 --> 01:11:35.439
authoritarianism, unquestioning, mindless. You
don't follow the commandments, follow instructions,

879
01:11:35.600 --> 01:11:40.119
do what you're told to do.
And then you see that in religion.

880
01:11:40.319 --> 01:11:44.960
You see that in the Inquisition,
you see that in every religious sect that's

881
01:11:45.000 --> 01:11:48.039
existed. You do what you're told
or your excommunity. I mean, think

882
01:11:48.039 --> 01:11:54.760
about Spinoza. Spinoza as a philosopher, well, I mean he started out

883
01:11:54.760 --> 01:12:00.279
as an ultra Orthodox Jew who started
who was considered the genius of his age.

884
01:12:00.800 --> 01:12:01.680
When he was a child, they
thought he was going to be the

885
01:12:01.760 --> 01:12:06.920
greatest rabbi ever because he was a
genius. He knew the Bible, he

886
01:12:08.039 --> 01:12:12.279
knew all the stuff like that.
But then he started asking questions. Questions

887
01:12:12.319 --> 01:12:16.000
are on uncomfortable because the rabbi couldn't
answer them, philosophical questions, but the

888
01:12:16.119 --> 01:12:18.640
nature of God and the nature of
this, and why the Bible says this,

889
01:12:18.760 --> 01:12:23.239
and why this, and and at
some point the rabbis have to said,

890
01:12:23.439 --> 01:12:27.359
stop asking questions. This is just
the way it is, This is

891
01:12:27.439 --> 01:12:31.439
the commandments, this is the truth. Just accepted entrepreneurs the couldn't so they

892
01:12:31.520 --> 01:12:36.640
excommunicated him literally, so family,
nobody would speak to him. Nobody,

893
01:12:36.760 --> 01:12:40.319
they pretended he wasn't there. If
he if he approached it, they walked

894
01:12:40.399 --> 01:12:45.359
right by him at each so he
was kicked out of his community. That's

895
01:12:45.399 --> 01:12:48.479
religion. That's religion when they take
it seriously. So religion when they don't

896
01:12:48.520 --> 01:12:53.319
take it seriously is a little bit
more moderate. And you know they you

897
01:12:53.399 --> 01:12:59.039
know. But at the base of
it is an epistemology of authibatarianism. At

898
01:12:59.079 --> 01:13:02.600
the base of it is a morality
of following commands, doing your duty.

899
01:13:03.359 --> 01:13:08.560
And what is particularly in Christianity,
what is that duty that you do?

900
01:13:08.760 --> 01:13:12.760
Duty is to sacrifice, to sacrifice
for others, to sacrifice for the poor,

901
01:13:12.920 --> 01:13:15.720
to sacrifice for the needy, to
sacrifice for your country, to sacrifice

902
01:13:15.800 --> 01:13:21.319
for God in the end. And
the symbol that Christians wear around their necks,

903
01:13:21.359 --> 01:13:25.520
and I'm sorry, I'm so anti
religion, but this is the life

904
01:13:26.600 --> 01:13:31.399
they wear around their neck is a
man being tortured on a cross. I

905
01:13:31.520 --> 01:13:36.800
can't think of a worse way to
die than dying on a cross, right

906
01:13:36.880 --> 01:13:44.000
to slow and painful, excruciating,
horrible evil. That's the symbol of the

907
01:13:44.079 --> 01:13:47.760
religion. Why did he die because
of sins he committed? No? Why

908
01:13:47.840 --> 01:13:53.800
did he die because of sins we
all committed. He's the ultimate sacrifice,

909
01:13:53.840 --> 01:13:58.399
sir, for others. He sacrifices
his life for our sins. Why would

910
01:13:58.399 --> 01:14:02.640
anybody do that? Right? I
understand somebody dying a horrible death for since

911
01:14:02.720 --> 01:14:06.159
they committed, but why would they
die for mycens I should die for mycense.

912
01:14:06.560 --> 01:14:11.880
Nobody else should die for mycense.
So it's it inculcates altruism, and

913
01:14:12.279 --> 01:14:15.880
this view of altruism, of self
sacrifice, of suffering, of suffering is

914
01:14:16.039 --> 01:14:23.119
virtue. And you know, over
the whole of Western civilization, unfortunately,

915
01:14:23.680 --> 01:14:29.359
there is a man on a cross
looking down at us. And that's the

916
01:14:29.479 --> 01:14:32.600
big challenge of Western civilization is how
do we overcome that? How do we

917
01:14:32.680 --> 01:14:41.039
overcome the fact that at Western civilization's
birth we have this really horrific site associated

918
01:14:41.079 --> 01:14:45.279
with it. Because Western civilization is
ultimately the rejection of the cross, the

919
01:14:45.399 --> 01:14:50.319
rejection of the crucifixion. Western civilization
is about the embrace of reason and individualism

920
01:14:50.800 --> 01:14:55.520
from the Renaissance, the Enlightenment.
That's what made the West and that's what

921
01:14:55.720 --> 01:14:59.520
we celebrate today. I think in
the West or should celebrate today in the

922
01:14:59.560 --> 01:15:05.840
West, but religion, religion holds
us back. There was maybe a longer

923
01:15:05.920 --> 01:15:10.039
answer than you Why no, no, no, it was. It was

924
01:15:10.079 --> 01:15:13.119
fantastic. I m it was very
helpful for me personally as well, and

925
01:15:13.199 --> 01:15:16.960
so very briefly then and then I'll
let you go. And this idea of

926
01:15:17.039 --> 01:15:21.720
a man on a cross being at
the start of Western civilization, as you

927
01:15:21.800 --> 01:15:26.600
mentioned just then, I think that
also hangs over myself and many of our

928
01:15:26.880 --> 01:15:30.439
of my listeners people listen to this
podcast at that moment, just how they

929
01:15:30.479 --> 01:15:31.800
were raised, how they're brought up, and kind of how they then live

930
01:15:31.840 --> 01:15:34.640
their life out. And then at
some point something changed and they began to

931
01:15:34.720 --> 01:15:38.520
question it all and the sort of
house came down, as you will,

932
01:15:39.119 --> 01:15:42.880
how do you encourage people to quite
a personal question, but how do you

933
01:15:42.920 --> 01:15:45.720
encourage people to begin to, I
guess, move forwards from that place,

934
01:15:45.880 --> 01:15:51.720
to begin to try and understand and
ground reason in the sense we've been talking

935
01:15:51.720 --> 01:15:57.119
about it this evening, and also
begin to live their life out and explore

936
01:15:57.199 --> 01:16:01.600
this space with almost excitement. How
do you Yeah, I think excitement is

937
01:16:01.640 --> 01:16:05.119
the right word. I mean,
I think people, I think that the

938
01:16:05.399 --> 01:16:14.319
important realization is this is it.
This life is it. There's nothing beyond

939
01:16:14.439 --> 01:16:19.159
this life. There's nothing beyond this
world, this reality. Now. That

940
01:16:19.319 --> 01:16:25.079
means you better take it seriously.
That means you've only got one shot at

941
01:16:25.119 --> 01:16:28.760
this. There's not multiple lives.
You're not gonna get reincarnated. You're not

942
01:16:28.880 --> 01:16:30.960
going to have it and try all
over again. You're not gonna be punished

943
01:16:30.960 --> 01:16:35.720
in hell for some thing that was
written two thousand years ago. It's just

944
01:16:35.920 --> 01:16:40.640
you. And that might sound lonely, but I view that as Wow,

945
01:16:40.720 --> 01:16:45.800
what an opportunity you get to shape
your life. You get to discover the

946
01:16:45.880 --> 01:16:50.920
truth for the truth, and and
and it's for you. You're not discovering

947
01:16:50.960 --> 01:17:00.439
the truth for some you know,
for some Uh, something beyond you,

948
01:17:00.840 --> 01:17:04.279
right, I mean, you hear
a lot about you got to find meaning

949
01:17:04.399 --> 01:17:09.680
that's beyond yourself. What is beyond
myself? My meaning is me. My

950
01:17:09.840 --> 01:17:12.920
meaning is my life. My meaning
is my values, the things that I

951
01:17:13.079 --> 01:17:18.520
love. My meaning is my morality, my goals in life. And it

952
01:17:18.680 --> 01:17:23.439
makes it, It makes life much
more accessible. You're not trying to please

953
01:17:24.159 --> 01:17:29.119
some being that you don't see and
don't understand. You're not you know.

954
01:17:29.199 --> 01:17:32.720
One of the first things you need
to really shrug off is original sin.

955
01:17:33.399 --> 01:17:38.560
You're not born with sin. You're
not bad because you're human. You're not

956
01:17:39.359 --> 01:17:44.720
evil because you're alive. You're not
evil because you're thinking and producing and creating.

957
01:17:45.720 --> 01:17:47.920
You know, sex is not something
to be ashamed of and hot,

958
01:17:48.039 --> 01:17:54.640
hidden and run away from. Life
is to be enjoyed and embraced. And

959
01:17:54.920 --> 01:17:57.680
but it's not easy, you know, there's a lot of responsibility there.

960
01:17:58.199 --> 01:18:01.520
Now it's up to you to figure
that out, to figure out what life

961
01:18:01.600 --> 01:18:05.199
means. So it's true that,
for example, sex is not evil and

962
01:18:05.880 --> 01:18:11.000
dirty and hidden, as as many
religionist would have us believe. But it's

963
01:18:11.039 --> 01:18:15.680
also true that sex is not trivial
and meaningless and just have it with anybody.

964
01:18:15.279 --> 01:18:20.199
Now you have to discover the true
spiritual and true value orientation of sex

965
01:18:20.239 --> 01:18:24.199
and then and then embrace it and
then you know, figure out who to

966
01:18:24.279 --> 01:18:27.279
have it with. But um,
but and that's true of every part of

967
01:18:27.399 --> 01:18:30.479
life. And it's it's not true
that you should sacrifice or the needy and

968
01:18:30.479 --> 01:18:32.960
you should sacrifice or this, and
you sacrifice, and you shouldn't sacrifice for

969
01:18:33.079 --> 01:18:36.960
anybody. Figure out what your values
are, what's important to you, and

970
01:18:38.039 --> 01:18:41.319
go get it, Go, go
strive to its. Don't use other people,

971
01:18:41.720 --> 01:18:45.560
don't exploit other people, don't light
to other people. Don't you don't

972
01:18:45.279 --> 01:18:50.279
live life as a moral human being. Expect other people to be moral,

973
01:18:50.399 --> 01:18:56.600
But morality means be rational, be
you know, honestly. Even honesty,

974
01:18:57.000 --> 01:19:00.399
for rand is different. Right,
most people think honesties don't lie, but

975
01:19:00.600 --> 01:19:05.800
lying is the trivial part of honesty. The real issue about honesty is be

976
01:19:05.960 --> 01:19:11.439
committed to reality, Be committed to
the facts. Don't lie to yourself.

977
01:19:12.319 --> 01:19:15.720
But it's more than that. When
you make when you're making a decision,

978
01:19:15.800 --> 01:19:17.920
when you're making a judgment, make
sure you have all the relevant facts.

979
01:19:18.279 --> 01:19:23.760
Make sure you're being objective. Right, That's that's that's the objectivism. So

980
01:19:24.000 --> 01:19:29.920
I think you know, I think
you know there's a real opportunity for rebirth

981
01:19:30.920 --> 01:19:34.239
um spiritually, materially, in every
respect. By by shrugging off religion,

982
01:19:34.920 --> 01:19:41.319
there's a realization that your life is
yours, nobody else's. You get tolive

983
01:19:41.399 --> 01:19:45.560
it, You get to make choices
about it. You get to choose your

984
01:19:45.640 --> 01:19:48.880
values. You don't have to accept
commandments or the preacher or anybody else's.

985
01:19:49.359 --> 01:19:51.960
You get to choose who to associate
it with. You get to choose who

986
01:19:53.000 --> 01:19:57.520
to trade with. Now, yes
it's work, Yes it's real responsibility,

987
01:19:58.159 --> 01:20:02.960
but that's part of the fun.
Right. Work should be enjoyable responsibility because

988
01:20:03.000 --> 01:20:06.359
it's your responsibility. The rewards also
yours. And life is to be enjoyed.

989
01:20:08.159 --> 01:20:11.840
Life is to be enjoyed. You
should, You should experience joy.

990
01:20:13.119 --> 01:20:16.319
It's not a grind. And you
know, I think original sin is really

991
01:20:16.359 --> 01:20:18.600
tough for people to get over it. I think, you know, you

992
01:20:18.640 --> 01:20:21.239
shouldn't feel guilty. There's nothing to
feel guilty about it. At least you've

993
01:20:21.239 --> 01:20:25.000
done something bad. If you've done
something bad, feel guilty. But if

994
01:20:25.000 --> 01:20:28.119
you haven't done anything bad, get
rid of that guilt. I know Catholics

995
01:20:28.159 --> 01:20:30.479
have a hard time with that,
Jews have a hard time with that.

996
01:20:30.119 --> 01:20:34.960
But you should never feel guilty for
something you didn't do. Yeah, thank

997
01:20:35.000 --> 01:20:39.279
you for that. That's powerful.
Yeah, I'm probably let you go.

998
01:20:39.479 --> 01:20:42.479
Where would you want to direct people
to to find you, to engage with

999
01:20:42.560 --> 01:20:46.560
your work and potentially reach out.
Yeah, I mean I do a podcast

1000
01:20:47.039 --> 01:20:50.840
YouTube thing, you know, every
day pretty much six days a week,

1001
01:20:51.319 --> 01:20:55.359
so YouTube. If the people look
me up on YouTube, I have a

1002
01:20:55.479 --> 01:20:59.000
channel there. I'm on all the
podcasting apps as well, so if they

1003
01:20:59.079 --> 01:21:01.119
if they just want to listen and
it's on there. Um, I have

1004
01:21:01.199 --> 01:21:05.520
a website, but the website just
ultimately refers everybody to YouTube. They can

1005
01:21:05.560 --> 01:21:09.640
also find I've got some books.
They can search my name on Amazon and

1006
01:21:09.680 --> 01:21:13.439
I'll come across some of my books. And of course I encourage everybody to

1007
01:21:13.479 --> 01:21:16.640
look up iron Rand and that's that's
more important. And uh, you know,

1008
01:21:16.720 --> 01:21:21.560
the best resource design iron Rand is
is is iron rand dot org a

1009
01:21:21.800 --> 01:21:28.199
y n r a nd dot org, which is Ironman Institute's website. Uh.

1010
01:21:28.279 --> 01:21:31.479
And of course Scoie de Fountain him
M yeah, yeah, of a

1011
01:21:31.560 --> 01:21:34.319
blink to all that in the description. Yeah, thank you so much for

1012
01:21:34.319 --> 01:21:36.520
coming in the show and talking with
me today. It's been a pleasure,

1013
01:21:38.520 --> 01:21:40.039
my pleasure. Thank you.