Today on the show, I'm joined by Yarn. Brooke Yarn comes onto the
podcast to talk to us about the philosophy of objectivism, especially through the lens
of a well known writer called iron Rand. Iron Rand has written many essays
philosophical essays looking at objectivism, but she's most well known for four books We
the Living Anthem, The Fountain Head, and then finally her magnum opus,
Atlas Shrugged. I really enjoyed Yarn coming on because he began to break down
the difference for us the listener between faith versus reason, faith being something we
can't know and we hope to live and live into the world by and explores
why faith isn't enough to make sense of and enjoy and fully live within life,
and why reason really is the crux and pinnacle of what we're trying to
utilize to get to where we're going. There's this idea that reality is out
there, it's here right now. We can touch it. It's tangible,
we can engage with it, we can perform experiments on it, we can
begin to get our hands into it. We engage with reality through reason,
and it has to be the individual who engages and uses their reason to interact
with reality and there's a really interesting pattern going on here, which Yarn explores
with us on the show itself. Yaa mentions this term epistemology a couple of
times in the show, and just so you know, epistemology is the theory
of knowledge, how we can have, attain and utilize knowledge. So fantastic
conversation that we have with Yarn today. I really valued his time and his
thoughts as he explored iron Rand's life, her works, his own story.
And at the very end we have a fantastic few minutes where he talks about
his views of faith and religion and why they are antithetical to objectivism, the
philosophy that iron Rand represents. If you're new to unbelief Dies, i'd ask
you to hit the subscribe button and then the notification bell. You'll be reminded
them whenever we release a video, and if you wouldn't mind giving this video
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Essentially, that helps to boost our visibility. The thumbs up helps the
algorithms, it helps others to find This conversation. Enough of that for now,
I hope you enjoyed this conversation on iron Rand and objectivism with Yaron Brook.
Cheers. Hello, and welcome to another episode of When Belief Dies.
My name is Sam. Today I'm joined by Yaron Brook. Yarn, it's
great to have you on the show. Thanks for having me answer. It's
good to be here. So, Yarn, I've been following you for quite
a long time, looking at your work and listening to a lot of your
conversations, and I've found your thoughts and opinions around objectivism and iron Rand to
be very stimulating and very challenging to me and my original beliefs, coming from
a Christian background now being more agnostic atheist, they're very challenging. So I
kind of want to dive into that. But I'm aware that a lot of
my audience probably don't know who you are. So would you mind just giving
us an overview about yourself and your work if that's okay? Sure? So
I where do I start? I for many years was the CEO of the
Iron Ran Institute. From two thousand to twenty seventeen, I was the CEO
of the Iron Ran Institute. I am today the chairman of the Ward and
I'm sure we'll getting into who i Innran was and whatever ideas. I first
read iron Ran when I was sixteen in at the time, I was living
in Israel, and I was never religious, so that was never that was
there an issue. But her philosophy blew my mind when I was sixteen.
It changed my perspective on a lot of different things in life, and it's
really shaped my life since then. And I'm, you know, kind of
what seems like a previous life. I was a civil engineer. I've got
an MBA, I've got a PhD in finance, i was a finance professor.
But what I spend my time doing today is really advocating for her ideas
or applying her ideas. I have a YouTube channel, I'm on Twitter.
I traveled around the world giving talks. I'll be in the in the UK
in a couple of weeks to give a couple of talks. So I'm I'm
all over the world speaking about really the application of iron Van's ideas to everything,
to your life as an individual, to the political world in which we
live, and kind of any anything in between. It's amazing and what is
it kind of I guess specifically this and I've got you and to be seven
Thieves and say passionate about both objectivism and iron Random. Aware we can dive
into the terms and who she will shortly, but it'd just begin to get
that sort of spark from you. I'd say the number one thing that excited
me about iron Rand was the idea that your life is, in a very
deep, fundamental sense, yours. It's it's it doesn't belong to the group.
You don't owe it to the tribe. You're not a sacrificial animal to
whoever decides that you should sacrifice for them the needs of others, and not
a moral claim against you. The purpose of your life is your happiness and
your success and your living the best life that you can live. And that
was for me a real revolution. I grew up in Israel in the sixties
and seventies, and it was a very collectivistic place. It was a place
in which you are part of this nation, or even broader, you are
part of this group called jew Jews, and you expected to sacrifice your life
for the greater good of the Jewish people, for the greater good of Israel.
It was just it was just a question of you know, when the
grenade was there so you could jump on it. That was and that was
the essence of virtue, was to sacrifice yourself. And Rand kind of asks
this fundamental question, she asks, why why should you sacrifice yourself? Why?
Why is other people's lives other people more important than you are? Why
why are their lives or their happiness or their success more important than your own?
And that that was a real revolution for me. That that shaped it.
And then once you start taking your own life seriously, once you start
focusing on your own happiness and your own success and your own flourishing as a
human being, that's fun and that's exciting, and that's that's something to be
passionate about, and you get the rewards from it, right do you?
So? I'm excited in a passion to playmoli about the impact that RAN's ideas
that objectivism has on the individual's life, and it gives him a kind of
a moral sanction and a moral okay to pursue his own success in his own
happiness. I was a little bit of a tangent, but I think it's
worth worth going down. I was talking to some friends recently and they're both
Polish and live over here in the UK now, and they're both in their
forties and lived for about good ten years within socialism and then kind of got
out of that system. And I'd read Michael Bukhakhov's The Master and Margharita,
which is a very well known Russian novel from the nineteen thirties, and I
was kind of giving them my reflections on it, and what kind of struck
me quite quite fearfully is I was very blind and I am very blind to
a lot of the socialist I guess trends and elements, or the collectivist trends
and elements that Bulgakov was trying to get across because I've not been raised or
brought up in that sort of environment. I guess kind of you know,
they're probably diving quite deeply to start with. It'd be really interesting kind of
hear from you having come from a bit more of a sort of collectivist setting
to a theoretically more individualist society like the US. But we can also get
into whether that's true as well, And do you think it's possible for people
who haven't been raised in that collectivist ideology to actually see the warning signs and
the issues and the concerns, or do you think it's something that actually we
can begin to learn and teach ourselves through reading and conversations like this. So
yeah, I definitely think we can shape our own future, we can shape
our own focus. And collectivism has learned and it can be unlearned. Individualism
is in a sense chosen and learned, and it can be unchosen and unlarned.
So I think people are much more flexible than we often give them credit
for. And look, there's the reality is that there's elements of individualism in
Israel is what could now be a successful as it is today without that.
There are strong elements of individualism in Israeli culture and in Jewish culture more broadly.
And of course there are strong collectivistic elements in the United States and suddenly
in Europe. Europe is a very collectivistic place, not quite as collectivistic as
I think Israel was in sixteen seventies. And of course Israel was also socialist
back then, and that has changed. So Israel has moved systematically away from
socialism since the early nineteen eighties o the late nineteen seventies. So socialism and
collectivism go to hand in hand, But so the fascism and collectivism, and
so does much of the political systems that we have today go hand in hand
with collectivism, just a milder form of collectivism which allows some room for individualism.
But what I learned from mine Rand, and what gets me excited,
is not to settle for these mixtures. Individualism is good in my view,
Collectivism is evil. Why have a little bit of evil? Why why do
a little bit? So when I came to the United States, I was
disappointed a little bit, because I mean, I knew somewhat what I was
coming to its but I certainly wasn't disappointed in that it wasn't more individualistic.
And when I go now back to Israel, I see more individualism there than
I did when I was growing up there, but it could be a lot
better. So my goal is to achieve the best possible, and the best
possible is much better than anything exists today in the world, in any country.
But we have these mixtures some countries. I think the UK is among
European countries. It's probably more individualistic and less collectivistic is compared to some other
European countries, but it's none of them are good enough. And I think
people don't really realize how much they'm missing out, and how much poorer they
are, not just poorer materially, but poorer spiritually, Poorer in lack of
happiness, poor in lack of opportunities to grow and to flourish as human beings
because they don't take their lives seriously and because they're not focused on pursuing their
own happiness and pursuing their own lives because they barred into immorality of collectivism in
one way or another to some degree or another. That's beautifully said. Yeah,
yeah, there are a few more questions down that vein we can get
to indue course, but before we do, it's a very big question and
very big ask. And Yaron, but would you mind giving us an overview
of Iron rand and her work? Yeah, maybe a bit of a biography,
because I think it's kind of it's interesting, her life was interesting,
and we'll talk about her work as well. I mean. Randall was born
in nineteen oh five in Saint Petersburg, Russia. She was born to a
middle class Jewish family. Alicia Rosenblum was was Rosenblum was her original name for
her father owned a pharmacy Um and Uh In nineteen seventeen, when she was
twelve, she witnessed the Russian Revolution and witnessed the communist takeover of Russia and
everything that that was involved in that I meant, no more pharmacy for her
father, no more living in a in an apartment by themselves now sharing an
apartment, and and and no more freedom of speech, and the whole environment
and oppression that communism involved. She went to university in what was communist Russia
and quickly realized that she wouldn't survive if she stayed there. I mean,
she would be killed. She was too much of an individualist. She was
too much had her own views, own opinions. She didn't conform. She
was this individualistic rebel within this world of conformity that was communism. There was
a small wind of opportunity in the nineteen twenties where Stalin not Stalin, was
Lennon still I guess let allowed some people out on different visas or different and
she she got out to do research related to something she was working on at
the university in the United States, and she managed to get out, and
she managed to get to the United States, where she had relatives in Chicago.
She spent a little time in Chicago but then she headed Hollywood. She
wanted to be a right from age seven, she had decided she wanted to
be a writer, and she loved American movie She had seen silent movies in
um in Russia, and she had fallen in love with cinema, and she
wanted to be in the movie business. She wanted to write for the movies.
So she here's this little Russian girl, I think she was twenty two
years old. She lives in Hollywood with nothing, I mean literally nothing,
and she shows up at the studios of the Cisa be de Mill Company.
And of course, I mean most of your listeners probably don't know who sees
to be the Mill was, but he was a Steven Spielberg of his day.
I mean, he was the director of his day. And you know,
they said, you know, don't call us, we'll call you,
but we don't really have anything. But she walks out and there's Steven there
is seas to be the Mill sitting in his big convertible outside, and she
stares at him and he asks her why she's staring, and she tells him
his story, the story about being here from Russia, and she wants to
be in the film industry, and she wants to be a writer, and
and he says, get in, I'll show you all movies a mate,
And he takes it to the backlot of the studio where they're filming The King
of Kings, the Story of Jesus Christ, of all movies, and he
gives herr pass and he and says, when she spent a week watching how
movies a mate? And she lands up becoming an extra in the movie set.
She meets her future husband on the movie set, and she lands up
finding odds and end's jobs. Not as a writer, obviously, she's still
young, and she still englishes us very much a second language at this point.
But she starts spending her time writing and studying and figuring out English.
And she lands up writing a play that is actually performed in la and actually
makes it too Broadway and is performed in New York. She lands up writing
a book called We the Living, which is a story of a young woman
in Russia and into Communism. So it's the most autobiographical of all her books,
even though it's not autobiographical, very powerful story about real life, what
life is like in the communism um. And that is not hugely successful but
it's it gets out there, and she slowly advances also with in Hollywood,
and she she ultimately will become a scriptwriter, and she does write some scripts
from movies, and she she added some scripts and she helps them choose scripts
from movies. But then Um, in nineteen forty five she has a book
called The fountain Head, which she has written before that she publishes a small
book called Anthem, and actually he gets published in the UK before it gets
published in the US, and there's good you know, it's a dystopian novel
that it's likely that before nineteen eighty four has written Um Anthem was published,
and there's some you can see some cross influences across these different, you know,
dystopian novels. Anyway, she writes The Found in ed twelve publishers rejected.
Finally a publisher accepts it and publishes it. But it's not that confident
that it'll sell. It's the only like print, two thousand copies, but
word of mouth as as this huge impact. It sells very quickly. Then
they go into another printing and another printing and another printing, and it becomes
a best sell in New York Times best Selling novel it gets quite very positive
reviews. It's and to this day it sells, you know, over one
hundred thousand copies. It's translated to pretty much every language in the world.
I think there only two major languages in which it RAN's works of not being
published, and that is Arabic and Fossey. I think every other, every
other major language in the world who work is inslated. So she does very
well. From the fountain Head, she returns to Los Angeles. She she
works in Hollywood, she does some scripts, and the meantime she's she writes
a book called Atlas Shrugged, which lands up being her last novel. And
Atlas Shrugged, by this point publishes compete to publish it. When it's published,
it's an instant bestseller, and again it sells hundreds of thousands of copies
to this day in all kinds of languages. In writing fountain Head and Atlas
Shrugged, I Man always had one goal for her writing. She wanted to
project what she calls the ideal man, and so she did a lot of
research about what is an ideal man? What does the culture I think an
ideal man? What is philosophers think an ideal man? What can I learn
from them, and she's very disappointed in what she sees. There's very little
consideration, and when there is talk about the ideal man, it's not her
ideal man. To her, Jesus is not an ideal man. The nichean
superman is not an ideal man. And most philosophers just don't project the kind
of what she sees as the human potential. So she lands up having to
come up with her own philosophy and discover on philosophy and figure out her philosophy
as she's writing these novels, and the novels are very philosophical, and there
is a projection of what she believes as an ideal man and an ideal woman
and ultimately what an ideal society should look like. But that is all so
the philosophy serves her literature. She's writing, she's thinking about philosophy in order
to write the novels. But once the novels are published, she then turns
to writing that philosophy. So she spends Adams trug This is published in nineteen
fifty seven, and she spends the next the rest of her life. She
died in nineteen eighty two. She's sends the rest of her life really writing
philosophy and applying philosophy to common events and uh, and and kind of teaching
her philosophy to the students the philosophers, um, and and creating objectivism,
which is the name she gave to her philosophy, and kind of a movement
around objectivism. So so she wrote books, books of essays. Uh.
There's a book on her epistemology called Introduction to Objective is Topistemology. There's a
book on ethics called the Virtue of Selfishness, a book on her politics called
Capitalism Non Ideal, and a series of other books philosophy who needs it with
philosophical essays, applying the philosophy to issues of the day and to issues of
human life. And maybe it's just say something about the philosophy. So what
is the philosophy? So this is kind of on one foot. Obviously it's
philosophy. So whole books can be said. But but in a very short
um, reality is what it is. This is her metaphysics. Reality is
what it is. Your wishes don't change reality. Your wishes don't make reality.
You don't create reality. And there is no other consciousness out that it
creates reality. Reality just is it always has been, and it is in
functions by the laws of nature of of reality. We as as human beings
um, have the capacity to know reality, to discover reality and understand reality.
That and that is reason. That it is human reason, our ability
to identify and integrate the material provided to us our senses, and our senses
are indeed connected to reality. They give us information about reality. M souh.
You know, reason is our means of knowledge, not our emotions.
Our emotions are important. Emotions are wonderful. You experience life through your emotions.
They're our tools of cognition. They don't tell you the truth about the
world out there. They might tell you something about you, but not about
the world out there. For that you need reason um and and the world
is noble. That is, she rejects skepticism and completely this idea that we
can't know reality. That we don't know reality. So we can know reality,
and the tool for knowing it is reason. And the alternative, of
course, is emotion. The other alternative is revelation. There is no such
thing as revelation, not the Platonic kind of Plato with the world of forms
and somehow the philosophy communicates with it or nor of religion where God kind of
tells you what the truth is. You know, truth is not truth.
It needs to be discovered. It needs to be discovered by you, and
it needs to be discovered by the use of your reason. So she rejects,
She rejects kind of all forms of superstition and also forms of mysticism.
Only the individual can reason. The reality is that you can't eat for me,
you can't think for me. And indeed, thinking is what makes us
human, and thinking is what makes it possible for us to survive as human
beings. And the unit the unit of value here, the unit that thinks,
the unit that survives, is the individual human being. And therefore,
in morality, her view is that what matters is the individual and his life,
and what matters is his ability to survive, thrive, and ultimately flourish,
and to do that he must apply his reason to the question of how
to live. And therefore she derives a morality from the facts of human existence
and the facts of human nature and human need to survive, and of his
need to use reason in order to survive. So her morality is reason based
and is focused on the individual's own happiness and own success and own flourishing,
as she would say, not sacrificing himself to others, but also not asking
all this to sacrifice to him. This is a This is a morality of
individualism where you don't you don't again, live for other people, but you
don't expect other people to live for you either. You live for yourself and
interact with other people by means of trade, either spiritual trade or material trade,
but win win relationships where you benefit from them and they benefit from you.
And that is the nature. The nature of a healthy human relationships is
through this relationship of win win relationship of trade. And in order to achieve
all this, you need to be free. You need to be free to
think, to use your mind, to use your reason, and therefore you
need to be able to act on your thoughts. You might be right,
you might be wrong, you might make mistakes, but you need to be
able to be to be free to test, to check these things out.
And as long as you're not holding other people, as long as you're not
violating the rights of other people, you should be left free to use your
rational judgment in pursuit of your rational values, free of coasion, fee of
force, and the only political system that allows for that is capitalism. Capitalism
is that political system that leaves individuals free to pursue their own values, using
their own judgment, free of coosi and fear of force, fee of control
by the government. So she rejects socialism, she rejects fascism, she rejects
all forms of statism. She is for individual liberty, individual freedom. So
that's that is the basic arc of her philosophy. I mean, we could
get into the aesthetics if you want, but that's a whole other or the
issue. Yeah, no, that was that was really well said. I
think one of the questions, like I mentioned some one of the audience asking,
is, um, why is the philosophy not known as individualism? Then
why is it known as objectivism? Is there is there a reason why it
became known to be that instead of individualism. Yes, because I think at
the heart of her philosophy is this conception of reason. Um, so you
know it should have been called reasonism, but that sounds weird, and so
you could have called it rationalism, but rationalism was already taken. The rationalist
philosophies and the rationalists are very different than I RAN's philosophy. So she didn't
want to be associated with Descartes and philosophers of that nature. Um. So
she was looking for something um epistemological, something that that there was like reason
that that related to to to what man does in order to achieve his individualism
in order to achieve his success um and object objectives. Objectivity is at the
heart of that. What is objectivity? Objectivity is identifying reality, identifying the
fact. It's a mistake to think of objectivity as presenting both sides of an
argument. I mean, how many sides are there? They could be fifty
five sides of an argument. So objectivity is not about presenting lots of positions.
It's about considering and then discovering the truth, discovering what's real, discovering
what is actually in reality? What is what is real in reality? I
e. What is true? So um so then so objectivity is the means
by which we attain knowledge. It's the means by which reason functions. And
therefore it's the closest reason that she could come up with as as a name
for the philosophy she wanted. She wanted to ground it in epistemology. She
didn't want it to be to political individualism is somewhat of a political you know,
because the contrast with collectivism, which is a political ideology. She didn't
view her philosophy is primarily political. She viewed, the philosophy is primarily epistemological
and ethical and moral. I really like that. And and the fact that
we're saying reality is a fundamental fact. We use reason to interpret that.
And the individual has to have that onus, on themselves to go and use
reason to understand and interact with reality. Yeah, to understand reality and to
and to to figure it out, to figure out what's true and what's not,
what's right, and what's what's not so and that is what reason is
for. It's you know, and and and one of the you know,
the important moral point is, and it's a moral epistemological point. Is every
other animal out there basically is born with the recipe for survival coded into their
DNA. I know exactly what to do. They there's no choices available to
them. It's it's as close as we have to AI. Right. They
get the inputs and the output is determined by the algorithm inside the genetic code.
Human beings are not like that. We're an evolutionary leap in this sense,
we don't have the software coded in. We have the hardware. We
have we have a brain and a mind, and we have the capacity to
engage and to write the software. We have the capacity, uh, you
know, to we have to figure out how to survive. We don't know
how to survive. You know, a bird has how to fly coded into
it. A human being does not. Agriculture is not coded into anybody.
Hunting even it's not coded in. So people had to discover when they went
to hunts. They had a figure stuff out, figure stuff out, use
reason that that build tools, that are build weapons. They had to communicate
in order to maybe hunt together. They had build traps. They literally had
to do things that require cognition. And you know, I often asked the
audience says, how many of you have the gene for hunting? And there
might be a few guys in the audience who think they do, but they
don't. Everything that human beings create literally everything requires thinking, requires thought and
thinking. It's not automatic. It doesn't just turn on. Indeed, there
a lot of people out there, unfortunately who never think or don't think.
They mimic, they copy, they follow, but they don't think. And
thinking requires effort, and the particular effort to thinking requires is focus. It
requires you know, it requires somebody to engage in free will. And I
know free will is a controversial issue among many people, but it shouldn't be.
It's it's it's the basic thing that human beings do because we have to
engage with our reason. It doesn't turn on automatically, and some people choose
not to turn it on, and and and that's that's uh, that's the
sad state of of of many people in humanity. But to the extent that
you turn it on and you engage, and you focus, and you look,
and you and you observe reality and you understand it and you integrate and
you exert the effort to understand and to learn and to grow, that's the
extent to which you will be successful as a human being. And to the
extent that you don't, you just drift, that's the extent to which you
will fail as a human being. Had a questionable I was going to save
to the end, which was from a patron, which I'll read, but
then I want to kind of frame it as well within this context. So
they're kind of saying you know Ironrand it's all about selfishness, and they say,
then that is often claimed by people that when they engage with iron Rand,
the idea that the self being at one center can't lead to fulfillment.
I'd be interesting to kind of get your take on that, but also kind
of just reflecting before you do jump into kind of pushing back on this idea
of it's just selfishness and you can't be fulfilled if you're at the center of
everything. And it kind of sounds like what you're saying is that as you
use reason, you begin to use also cooperation with those around you, that
you have that wind wind relationship. And actually it sounds like although the self
is at the center, it's still in a holistic way. You're still driving
value and freedoms and life, I guess through those interpersonal connections and those relationships.
But yeah, i'd love to get your take on that. Yes,
the first I don't want to run away from the term selfish, right,
what does selfish means? It's contrasted with self less. Selfless means not taking
responsibility for self, not taking care of self, not focusing on self.
And yeah, self fish is the right term in the sense that Ironman's morality
is about focusing on making your life the best life that it can be,
the most flourishing, most successful. Does that involve other people? Well,
of course it does. I mean it would be bizarre if it didn't.
Living on the desert island is no fun and it's not the best life that
you can live. There's no way it's the best life. To innecutive,
I depend on gazillions of people too, I don't know, produce the iPhone
so that I can enjoy, or or build internet platform so we can do
this in this interview and see, I have this unbelievable appreciation for all those
people, and believable appreciation business generally, and unbelievable appreciation for inventors and scientists
because I'm selfish because all the stuff that they have discovered and they do and
they produce I benefit from And isn't that so cool? So thank you to
all the producers out there and all the innovators at all. See, and
then it gives you a completely different perspective on life and on the world.
You become much more appreciative of the efforts of other people and much more thankful
for other people. And you know, so so I love trading with people.
I love buying stuff selling stuff. Um and uh and uh, so
I want other people. You know, I don't want to get money for
nothing. I want to be able to provide a service. And I'm happy
to trade because I you know, if if somebody is going to I want
something. If I'm going to get something for somebody, I want it to
be because of something that is worthwhile. Um, that's part of be being
proud of the work that I do. I don't want I don't want a
free lunch. I don't want somebody just to give me stuff, right that
that would diminish me. So selfishness really means this idea of viewing everything out
there from the perspective of how does it contribute to my life? And it
turns out, wow, gazillions of people do and amazing stuff is happening out
there, and it's like, I'm incredibly benevolent to other people because other people
contribute so much to my life. And then that's kind of at a social
level, But then what about I mean, think about the value you get
from friendship and the immense visibility and the immense emotional satisfaction and spiritual satisfaction you
get in friendship, and friendship is not about sacrifice. Friendship fish again,
it's about this spiritual trade. This about giving and getting. And if you
don't think it's trade, try doing friendship just one sided and see how long
that lasts. And of course take it one of a further. What about
love, I mean, woe is Are there many more important things than love
and a human being's life in terms of I mean, love is the most
selfish emotion you can have. It's what this woman makes me feel. It's
what this woman, you know, it makes my life better, my life
better. I'm not sacrificing for her. I love it because it makes me
a better human being, because it makes me feel better about myself and about
life and about the world. So love is incredibly selfish. Friendship is incredibly
selfish, And it's not about being the center of the universe. I don't
think selfishness is about being egocentric. I'm not the center of the universe.
I mean being a center of the universe is more narcissistic. I don't think
everybody should view me as a center of the universe. For them, their
life is the center. So I'm the center for me, But for them,
they're the center, and therefore the only way I can deal with them
is through trade and through friendship, and through love and through whatever appropriate relationship
there is. But I find that people who take this attitude, take on
philosophy seriously, and have this profound respect for their own life and the importance
of their own life, and want to make their life the best life that
it can be, actually have a very very benevolent view of other people,
treat them really really well because they realize how much value they can get in
return. Now saying all that, some people are really really bad. Some
people do you harm, And one thing OBJECTIVESM teaches you is stay away from
those people. Don't feel a duty to interact with people who are harmful to
you. Don't feel a duty to write a check to that sibling of yours
who's a complete loser who will never make anything of their life and is bleaching
off of you. You don't owe them anything, you know, and in
that sense, it could even be your parents in a sense, don't owe
your parents anything beyond what you know what they gave you. If they gave
you love, and they give you a nice up bringing and a nice then
yeah, I mean, hopefully you love them and you can repay them in
a sense. But if your parents allows the parents, you don't owe them
because of blood or because of genes. So it objectivism and this whole approach
of being self interested. It is all about judging people out there and evaluating
them. Are they good for me? Are they're bad for me? Stay
away from people who are bad for you, and embrace people who are good
for you. Now, it turns out that at least at a superficial level,
almost over most people are good for you. And then there were a
few people who are really good for you and you want to be friends.
And then there's one or two people that you really are going to love and
they're special, and you know at the peak of that is romantic love.
So you know, judging people is important and having a high key of relationships
is important. You don't treat everybody the same. I am made with Jacky
Gellatianism and she rejects sacrifice or self sac Yeah, yeah, yeah, everything
you're saying. Um, I mean, it's just it's makes me think of
Howard Rourke, right, It's it really is. And so one of my
one of my questions is around kind of trying to help us understand objectivism through
iron Rand's works, Like how does she go about relating a portraying that the
very things you're saying within her four novels and her essays with four levels are
probably known the most. But yeah, i'd love to that you'll take on
how she actually pushes that vein of thought out through her pages. Well,
I mean, it's very clear in her novels. These ideas are very clear
in her novels. Howard work is the is the hero of the fountain Head.
He is an architect, and from the beginning, from the first line
where Howard which is Howard Work laughs, it is clear that here is a
man who is who is complete in control of his life, who knows what
his values are. He's trying to understand the world. He doesn't quite understand
the world. He does by the end of the novel, but he's struggling
to understand other people. But in terms of himself and what he wants and
what his values are, he is focused on that. He understands it,
and he pursues those values, you know, ruthlessly, without compromise. He
never uses people, he never he's never allows himself to be used by other
people. He has complete integrity, and it's integrity in ways that people often
surprise when it comes to man because people associate and this is part of part
of the realm I think evil in the culture that we live in, people
associate self interest and selfishness with money. If I say him self interest,
oh you're just greedy. He just want lots of money. Now, maybe
I do want a lot of money, but that isn't my defining characteristic.
That isn't what being self to mean. Being self interested to mean. I
want to live the best life that I can live. Money might be a
part of that. It has to be a part of that, no matter
what, because you have to survive. Money is essential for survival. But
is that the only thing that's important for somebody who is self interested? Of
course not, that would be ridiculous. Money's just a means, it's a
tool. So for how to work. What's really important to him is his
integrity, his autistic, steatic integrity. He wants to build buildings. He's
an architect the way he believes they should be built that are consistent with his
vision of architecture. And there's a scene in a novel where he has offered
he's struggling, he has no clients, he's making no money, he has
nothing, and he's offered this unbelievably lucrative job. He's going to build this
skyscraper of a bank and he's gonna get rich. And all they want is
fame. To compromise on some elements in his designed just put in some Greek
columns where he doesn't believe they should be Greek columns. And he says no,
and people go. And I Rance point is, that's what selfishness means.
Selfishness means sticking to your principles. Selfishness means pursuing your values. Money
money is a means for facilitating this trade. But if what I'm getting in
return undermines my moral principles, my esthetic principles, it undermines who I am
as a human being, there's no price for that. Give me gazillion dollars,
I'm not giving you that. So, no matter how much they offer
him, how it works not building a building he doesn't believe in, and
he'd rather it turns out work in a quarry, in manual labor than design
buildings he doesn't believe in. And that is that if people just got this
one thing out of the valehead, right, that's what selfishness really means.
It means really understanding what your principles are, really understanding what your life requires
and what your happiness requires, and living by that. It's not about I
don't know, just just money grubbing, which is kind of the attitude people
assume selfishnessess. So so that's in the Fountain. It's the Fountain that's very
much focused on the presentation of individual morality and how it plays out in a
man's life and what success looks like when you pursue kind of this morality.
And you know, I don't want to give the novel away, but so
I encourage people to read it. A Was Shrugged then is a bigger book
in a sense. It deals more with not just the individual, also the
individual. And they are striking examples of individuals there that face very similar kind
of alternatives as work does and and I think choose properly and some who don't
and stuff for the consequences. But here it's a it's kind of a society
wide lesson it's uh, it's more um. The theme is broader and deeper
than than individual morality. Really, when Ironmand was asked what the theme of
Atlas Shrug was, she said, it was the role of reason in man's
life, the role of the mind in man's life. And you can see
what happens when somebody is committed to reason, and when somebody abandoned reason,
and when society respects reason, when society abandoned reason, and and it's all
geared to that. And people usually think of Atlas Shrugg is a political book,
but it's not. It's about epistemology and and that's that's crazy and and
but that's that's how Ironrand thought. And it's an exciting book. It's a
it's it's an exciting book. Uh, that is so relevant to life in
the world today. And and what you see there is a reason versus unreasoned.
Living your life for yourself versus not is a great character. And Atlas
Shrugged read and who who is struggling? He is He lives kind of his
family life. He lives on the morality of altruism and the morality of sacrifice,
and the morality of his family owns him in a sense. He's guilty.
He feels guilty for not giving them enough but he doesn't really want to
give them that much, and he feels guilty enough spending enough time with his
wife, but he doesn't really want to spend that much time with her.
At what he really wants to do his work. And he loves his work.
He's passionate about his work. He's completely self interested when it comes to
his work. But he but he thinks that's that's material and low. He
thinks sex is material and low at the beginning of the novel, and he
has to learn he has to learn that no, this is the best in
him. And if he needs to apply this the principle that he applies at
his wook two sects to his relationship with his family, to every aspect of
his life, and that's the way he changes throughout the novel is one of
the most interesting features of the novel. But again it illustrates every aspect of
her philosophy, facts, reason, individualism, a morality of self interest.
So she does that throughout the novel, through all her characters and through the
plot, and then of course in a nonfiction you know, she's got an
essay the Objectives Ethics where she talks about selfishness. She even talks about why
she calls it selfishness and and she so she's these are more philosophical, it
says, now, granted, the philosophical, but they're not written for philosophers.
They're written for the layman. And I think a lot of academic philosopher's
rejection of her has to do with the fact that she didn't write their language.
Right. You pick up a philosophy book, it's hard to understand.
Ironman is easy to understand, and because she's writing in your language, she's
not easy to fully grasp. A lot of our stuff. You have to
read more than once. But the language is the language that every in the
chain of logic is understandable, and it's in English, it's not in philosophees.
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the description, and thank you for supporting the show. Right, let's get
back to this week's conversation. Yeah, it's I really reappreciate her style.
Yeah. I also interestingly read the books in probably the reverse order and that
they published it. No, it was the reverse orders. Sorry, read
at the Shrug, then The Fountainhead, then Anthem, then We the Living.
I'm actually halfway through with The Living at the moment, finding it devastating.
Actually it's such a so I've read things like The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander
Stolschitzkin, and that's all about kind of what life was like in these concentration
camps essentially within Soviet Russia at the time. And I've actually found that We
the Living seems to be providing me more of ada on the ground what communism
look like and how things have stripped away from people and the fact that they're
they're eating food and trying to get food and having to go hungry and then
trying to and again it's you know, Kira, I believe her name is
the sort of main character within this novel, at least currently is trying to
live her life in this very kind of self I want to go in this
direction, and I want to build bridges. That's what she's trying to do.
And she's having to do that and also live within this sort of regime
which is completely counter to who she is a person. How would you encourage
people to engage with her books? Would you say to kind of start at
the beginning and work at the end. Would you encourage and to start with
something like the fountain Head first? Maybe No, I would encourage you to
start with the farantin heerd I read out a shrug first, and then the
farm Head, and then Anthem and with the Living so like you, but
I would encourage them to have started with the fantin Head if they really,
really really don't like fiction for some reason which I don't understand. But if
they don't, then they can start with virtue of selfish us so capitalism unknown
ideal and I agree with you. I also Rich Chel Jennison, and I
find I find with a Living in some ways much more powerful because it sets
up this amazing young woman who just wants to live her life, but she's
very rational and very thoughtful about it, and the obstacle she runs across,
and then the men that she falls in love with and the conflicts that that
creates, and all she's trying to do is is live her life and she
can't. And then how this system affects different people, like she won't give
up, but how does it affect the other people? And how does it
destroy not just destroy them im materially, but how does it destroy them spiritually?
How does it destroy the capacity to live and to enjoy life? And
I think she doesn't a magnificent job at that. But I would definitely start
with The found Head. I think it gives it's it's the most personal novel
for the reader, I think, and it's the most engaging. And then
you know, if you really into politics, let's say, or in politics
and far I see, then you could start with The Without Shrugged and then
read defunt in Head. But I think for most people I would say start
with The Found in Head and then and then got out as shrugged. And
in all four of these books, when a character, whether they be living
through a sort of objectivist lends themselves or not, when they see somebody who's
who is living with self at the center they're they're often describing how they appear
to them, and iron Rand uses very almost mathematical or maybe geometrical or masculine
in a sort of way language to the finally talks about the lines of their
face and how their head was up Brian, how their back was straight.
Um. She talks about the figures of the of the ladies and sort of
how their legs were positioned and things. It's very it's such interesting language.
I've not seen that anywhere else. But she seems to almost be imbuing these
characters with definitive, complete imagery, whereas other characters she'll mention the sort of
shoes they were wearing, all the scuffs on that jacket, whereas these characters
are full people in a sort of way. I want if you could speak
to that a little bit for us. Yeah, I mean, I think
I think she's an artist and she's trying to through the way she's describing these
people and the way they stand, and the way they walk and the way
they carry themselves to tell you something about their character. She can't, she
can't invest in every one of the characters the full time to teach you,
to tell you about them. She can only do that to a few characters
were the heroes of this story. But she wants you to get a sense
of the character. And we all know that often we get strong, first
and often correct lasting impressions just by looking at somebody how they dress, or
how they carry themselves, or how they walk. You know, I do
think love at first sight exists because we can connect in some way, very
quickly and very directly with those kind of things in other people. So she's
she is activating that. So she's trying to activate your, uh, you
know, maybe a certain perception of what masculinity is and a certain perception of
what femininity is, and also a certain perception of what a horrible people person
would look like or what they would do and how they would be maybe bent
over, and maybe they're particularly you know, ugly. She's not saying everybody
who's ugly as a bad person, but she's using it as an autistic mechanism
to activate a certain emotion a certain context for the reader, um and and
and she wants to present her heroes heroically. It's art. It's an art,
you know. I think she agreed with with Aristotle. Art should present
reality as it should and could be right, but should and could. So
she's trying to present people as as as as heroic and therefore having the statue
of hues, and she had a very definitive view of what she thought masculinity
and femininity you were as an artist and how to convey Then, of course,
as an artist you have to have some insight into human psychology to be
able to be able to really project your characters effectively. And we've kind of
talked about the sort of vision of the perfect man and her sort of research
around what that looked like. You mentioned, obviously, nietzsure, the idea
of kind of superman or kind of yeah, beyond good and evil, almost
as a sort of power, the power to will. And so I think
it'd be interested to kind of talk a little bit about iron round then around
the sort of that, the idea of masculinity and the perfect man and how
she does portray that, because there does seem to be a man isn't always
used necessarily in a sort of humanity everybody, but sometimes it really is kind
of actually a male figure that she kind of writing about here. And for
some people that can't be a bit of a turn off, but I think
it could just address it to kind of help people understand what they should expect.
Sure, so first, she does use you know, writing, she
does use man to represent humanity. This was not different than pretty much everybody
else at the time. This is pretty standard English at the time, you
know. The it's only in modern times that we do he she and all
this stuff in order to cover everybody. But she does have she does believe
men and women are different, and that they have certain psychological differences and that
they have, um, you know, certain differences in how they're oriented.
Um. And you could agree and disagree with that, but but she definitely
has a particular view of that and for her and and look, just to
put this in perspective, the hero of Alice Shrugged, I mean the one
the hero of Alice Shrugged in the sense that the one written most about in
the book is a woman, Dagney Taggert, who runs a railroad. Now
this is nineteen fifty seven, i'mand a shot at any glass ceiling that might
have existed. She plays as a woman as clearly the most competent person on
planet Earth to run the most important railroad on planet Earth, and she does
it efficiently, efficaciously. She's a negotiator, she's tough, she's amazing.
Dagney is just amazing as a business person. But she's a woman, And
for rand there's something different between a woman who's a business person and a man
who's a business person in terms of their personal life, in terms of the
psychological life, in terms of she's feminine, and she exudes femininity when she's
at a part of you, when she's in a social environment, when she's
having sex, and men, while they might not be as competent as in
business, in a different setting, they exude masculinity. So for her saying
somebody, something's femine, something's masculine, it's not a judgment. It's a
positive. It's a positive to be masculine, it's a positive to be feminine.
Both are both are positives. Um, So there's nothing infery about being
a woman. But she does have this view that men that masculinity is an
orientation towards reality towards conquering nature. It's it's towards discovery out there. And
that femininity as a as a as a psychological characteristic is oriented towards a man,
towards um finding a hero and admiring a hero. So there is that
psychological orientation that she identifies with masculine and feminity. Again, you can agree
with that or not. I think still think you'll love their heroes, and
particularly when you realize that in spite of Dagny's orientation towards looking for a hero,
a man who is a hero to love, she's also a heroine.
She's a superhero really, and and she's the most competent railroad executive in the
world. So um So, I think people love the characters in these novels
and love this representation. It's very unmodern, it's very non modern in a
sense of the modernity is so much about there's no differences between men and women.
No, there are differences, and we should celebrate. Yeah, I
totally agree. I think they're fantastic, the novels and that mantra and I've
got three more, four more questions. The sort of next one is around
I guess kind of an iron Rand end of life US. It's often viewed
that if this is true or not, that that when somebody's living out this
sort of objectivist mindset, that as they get towards the end of their life,
because they no longer to necessarily do everything that they wants to be able
to do, that sort of happiness begins to subside because maybe they've not built
the family around and they wanted, or they've not built the support networks,
etc. Etc. Because they've been go, go go. And I thought
it'd be interesting you to kind of get your take on that that towards the
end of iron Man's life she was maybe kind of sad or disappointed that it
hadn't been everything that she thought it could be. I don't know whether that's
true, but I think it'd be helpful to kind of view objectivism through that
sort of final days stage where people do get to the end and kind of
begin to reflect back as well. So I don't think that was true of
iron Man. I think she might have been sad and by the fact that
the world did not live up to her expectations, that is, that the
world was not as good as she thought it could be, and that it
did not responded to her quite as positively as she had hoped they would,
despite of being best sellers. In spite of all those success and monetary success
and esteem. I mean, she was on TV, she was in the
White House, she was I mean, she was a real celebrity. At
the end of the day, the world did not just embrace the philosophy and
run with it. It was still very controversial throughout her life. So I
think she was a little disappointed in other people in the world. But I
think she embraced the life that she had lived. She had lived, she
thought, and I think she did the life of one of her characters from
the novel. She had lived a heroic life, a successful life. She
had done everything she had set out to do. I don't think she had
any big regrets in terms of what she had done. And I think,
look, how what happens at the end of your life is very much going
to be dictated about how you live your life. If you indeed take your
life seriously, if you indeed pursue your values, if you're thoughtful and and
and you know, make your life the best that it can be, and
make it interesting and make it enjoyable, and make it and you're happy and
you're thriving and successful and flourishing, and you embrace this life. Then at
the end of life, I think you look back and you know I'm not
young anymore. You look back and you say, wow, cool. You
know I lived. I lived a good life. I did an amazing number
of things. I tried an amazing number of things. I succeeded, I
failed, but you know it was I You know it was a well lived
life. That that's what you wanted to end, right. You want to
say I didn't waste my time. I didn't just sit around. I didn't
just drift. I didn't just follow the crowd. I didn't just follow orders.
I lived. I used my mind to shape my life. Could have
done better here, could have done better there too. You know what difference
does it make? It's too late now, probably surely, and you can
always learn. And if I had the knowledge today that I do when I
was twenty, yes, and there are obviously things you would change, But
that's not the point. The point is, um, did I do the
best that I could do when I did it? And did did I did
I? Did I achieve flourishing? And did I make the effort to make
my love great and if the answers yes, then hey, that's all you
can That's all you can do in life in the end, and death is
kind of sad, but we know it has to happen. So Soviet.
So the next questions around sort of her early days in in the US when
she'd come over. Um, she obviously left Soviet Russia and she moved into
theoretically kind of free America, And I think from what I can tell,
she was quite shocked by how easily swayed individuals were within America towards kind of
socialist ideas, and that then affected her writing, affected obviously the books that
she produced. That there was a sort of domino effect from that. But
I thought, it obviously get you are the experts, it'd be good to
get your taken kind of how obviously she fled that she came to freedom theoretically
what she believed to be freedom, and then she experienced something. Did that
experience then push her into exploring objectivism for herself further but also then trying to
help us as now her readers also understand the broader landscape. Yeah, so
I definitely think she came to the United States, and was disappointed at the
level at which Americans understood the freedom that they have, the willingness, you
know, she came here just before If the R was elected, and then
she saw what if the R did and to really move America away from capitalism
and away from freedom. So she was disappointed in the willingness of America to
embrace socialism. In the nineteen thirties, when We the Living came out,
she found so many American intellectuals thought communism was fantastic and rejected her book because
how can you be critical of communism? It's amazing, um and and and
so that definitely, very very much disappointed her. And I think ultimately she
was motivating and educating Americans in what they had and the value of what they
had and and and encourage them not to give it up and and and but
I think a primary motivation, as I said, to develop a philosophy was
to write her arts, to write her novels, and to elevate the individual
and to give the individual something to look up at and something to to to
um uh, you know, to to really help people, inspire people to
live their lives the best, the best lives that they can live. But
then it became clear that she had to articulate that philosophy more explicitly, and
it wasn't just enough in the novels. And I think she did set out
to in a sense, save America and save liberty and save freedom and philosophically
complete the work that was started by philosophers and the Enlightenment and really ground reason
philosophically, and ground egoism philosophically, and and and then ground capitalism is a
consequence philosophically and ground freedom. So that was definitely part of what she was
trying to do and what she was hoping to do, and what she devoted
much of her life, I think, particularly after the novels, but even
while she was writing the novels. Two is to achieving that that philosophical completeness,
that philosophical grounding of these ideas. Yeah, and then you see those
ideas flourish in her novels. Um, which is beautiful. Um. Okay,
this is the question I'm being very excited to get to. UM.
So, systems of faith, say, for example, the Catho Church seem
to be antithetical to objectivism. It'd be interesting to kind of hear from you
why this is and kind of suggests because because it does suggest that that these
big kind of views of faith are essentially wrong. So kind of how how
how are they antithetical? And why does that then suggest that a faith system
isn't isn't correct? Yeah, so they're really anithetical in every dimension. I
mean, and start with the idea of a system of faith. What is
faith faces the acceptance of something where there is no evidence for it. It's
the acceptance of something in spite of the lack of evidence, the lack of
fact, the lack of reality. Faith is the antithesis of reason, is
indeed the rejection of reason. It's saying I don't need facts and reality and
my senses and reason. I just know, you know, I just know.
How do you know? I just know? Revelation, God spoke to
me, whatever. But in the end of the day, it's all emotion.
All that's left is emotion. Once you reject reason, you're left with
emotion. So how do you know that God said it to you? Well,
you hear it in you know, you emote it. You don't observe
it out there because it isn't there. So uh so, so faith is
just the the the the manifestation of an of of emotionalism. It's it's it's
the absence of reason, and objectivism rejects anything where reason um where you we
put reason aside. Reason is a means of cognition. Reason is that basic
means a survival. Reason is the way we know the world, and and
anything that undermines reason needs to be put aside. And religion undermine's reason.
They can tell you that they believe in God, that it's rational to believe
in God, but but it's bys. Nobody believes in God because it's rational.
They believe in God because they want to believe in God because emotionally they
they have committed themselves to believe in God, they want to for some emotionalist
reason. And then they might rationalize it with some you know, all the
logical proofs of God, which all of them have been been shown to be
false by philosophers. As it did it change any religionous mind, probably,
you know, maybe at the margin, but most people are not convinced by
because it's not about reason, it's not about logic, it's not about rationality.
So that's the beginning of it, and really, in a sense,
the end of it, because once you accept faith, Well, how do
we know what we know? Well, it's written in a book, right,
and for thousands of years until Galileo, even physics was written in a
book. You can challenge that. So, uh, you know, in
one of the books in the Old Testament it says that basically the sun goes
around the Earth because God actually stops the sun from moving across the sky,
so Joshua could win a battle, so it gets more daylights. You can
win a battle, right, it stops. You know, it completely contradicts
the laws of physics. Um. So yeah, but God didn't. God
could do anything according to faith. Faith is faith is completely open. You
can do anything. Um. But then Galilo says, well, but you
know, something doesn't go around you know, the earth, Earth goes around
the sun. And oh wait a minute, how do you how do you
know that? I use my senses, I use my reason to discover that.
Well, that's the conflict. Faith says, no, the other way
around. Okay, So so in some cases we we are going to dismiss
faith and we're going to accept science because it's so obviously true. Okay,
but what about morality? What's morality in the Old Testament? What's seven commandments?
Are they explained? Are they justified? Are we told why we should
follow these commandments? No? Why should you follow the commandments? Because God
sets them? And are there any cases you wouldn't follow the commandments? Sure?
If God tells me not to follow them, I won't follow them.
I mean, religion is authoritarianism. It's an authoritarianism granted to a being that
doesn't exist, which is a very scary type of authoritarians because then what you
want, what you're afraid of, is his representatives on earth channeling his will.
And there's no but give me a reason, Like Abraham doesn't stop and
say kill my son? Why why would I do that? That's like stupid,
that's like so imral and ridiculous, and actually, God, it violates
one of your commandments. Now, the commandments are given after the story of
Abraham, but you know, I think even pre in the Commandments, everybody
understood the murder was wrong. He doesn't do that. He doesn't question God,
he doesn't ask him. And the reason Abraham is a moral hero to
Jews, Christians and Muslims, he's the one that unites them all, is
because he says, yes, God, I'll do whatever you say, and
he takes his son and he tries to murder him. Right, it's pure
authoritarianism, unquestioning, mindless. You don't follow the commandments, follow instructions,
do what you're told to do. And then you see that in religion.
You see that in the Inquisition, you see that in every religious sect that's
existed. You do what you're told or your excommunity. I mean, think
about Spinoza. Spinoza as a philosopher, well, I mean he started out
as an ultra Orthodox Jew who started who was considered the genius of his age.
When he was a child, they thought he was going to be the
greatest rabbi ever because he was a genius. He knew the Bible, he
knew all the stuff like that. But then he started asking questions. Questions
are on uncomfortable because the rabbi couldn't answer them, philosophical questions, but the
nature of God and the nature of this, and why the Bible says this,
and why this, and and at some point the rabbis have to said,
stop asking questions. This is just the way it is, This is
the commandments, this is the truth. Just accepted entrepreneurs the couldn't so they
excommunicated him literally, so family, nobody would speak to him. Nobody,
they pretended he wasn't there. If he if he approached it, they walked
right by him at each so he was kicked out of his community. That's
religion. That's religion when they take it seriously. So religion when they don't
take it seriously is a little bit more moderate. And you know they you
know. But at the base of it is an epistemology of authibatarianism. At
the base of it is a morality of following commands, doing your duty.
And what is particularly in Christianity, what is that duty that you do?
Duty is to sacrifice, to sacrifice for others, to sacrifice for the poor,
to sacrifice for the needy, to sacrifice for your country, to sacrifice
for God in the end. And the symbol that Christians wear around their necks,
and I'm sorry, I'm so anti religion, but this is the life
they wear around their neck is a man being tortured on a cross. I
can't think of a worse way to die than dying on a cross, right
to slow and painful, excruciating, horrible evil. That's the symbol of the
religion. Why did he die because of sins he committed? No? Why
did he die because of sins we all committed. He's the ultimate sacrifice,
sir, for others. He sacrifices his life for our sins. Why would
anybody do that? Right? I understand somebody dying a horrible death for since
they committed, but why would they die for mycens I should die for mycense.
Nobody else should die for mycense. So it's it inculcates altruism, and
this view of altruism, of self sacrifice, of suffering, of suffering is
virtue. And you know, over the whole of Western civilization, unfortunately,
there is a man on a cross looking down at us. And that's the
big challenge of Western civilization is how do we overcome that? How do we
overcome the fact that at Western civilization's birth we have this really horrific site associated
with it. Because Western civilization is ultimately the rejection of the cross, the
rejection of the crucifixion. Western civilization is about the embrace of reason and individualism
from the Renaissance, the Enlightenment. That's what made the West and that's what
we celebrate today. I think in the West or should celebrate today in the
West, but religion, religion holds us back. There was maybe a longer
answer than you Why no, no, no, it was. It was
fantastic. I m it was very helpful for me personally as well, and
so very briefly then and then I'll let you go. And this idea of
a man on a cross being at the start of Western civilization, as you
mentioned just then, I think that also hangs over myself and many of our
of my listeners people listen to this podcast at that moment, just how they
were raised, how they're brought up, and kind of how they then live
their life out. And then at some point something changed and they began to
question it all and the sort of house came down, as you will,
how do you encourage people to quite a personal question, but how do you
encourage people to begin to, I guess, move forwards from that place,
to begin to try and understand and ground reason in the sense we've been talking
about it this evening, and also begin to live their life out and explore
this space with almost excitement. How do you Yeah, I think excitement is
the right word. I mean, I think people, I think that the
important realization is this is it. This life is it. There's nothing beyond
this life. There's nothing beyond this world, this reality. Now. That
means you better take it seriously. That means you've only got one shot at
this. There's not multiple lives. You're not gonna get reincarnated. You're not
going to have it and try all over again. You're not gonna be punished
in hell for some thing that was written two thousand years ago. It's just
you. And that might sound lonely, but I view that as Wow,
what an opportunity you get to shape your life. You get to discover the
truth for the truth, and and and it's for you. You're not discovering
the truth for some you know, for some Uh, something beyond you,
right, I mean, you hear a lot about you got to find meaning
that's beyond yourself. What is beyond myself? My meaning is me. My
meaning is my life. My meaning is my values, the things that I
love. My meaning is my morality, my goals in life. And it
makes it, It makes life much more accessible. You're not trying to please
some being that you don't see and don't understand. You're not you know.
One of the first things you need to really shrug off is original sin.
You're not born with sin. You're not bad because you're human. You're not
evil because you're alive. You're not evil because you're thinking and producing and creating.
You know, sex is not something to be ashamed of and hot,
hidden and run away from. Life is to be enjoyed and embraced. And
but it's not easy, you know, there's a lot of responsibility there.
Now it's up to you to figure that out, to figure out what life
means. So it's true that, for example, sex is not evil and
dirty and hidden, as as many religionist would have us believe. But it's
also true that sex is not trivial and meaningless and just have it with anybody.
Now you have to discover the true spiritual and true value orientation of sex
and then and then embrace it and then you know, figure out who to
have it with. But um, but and that's true of every part of
life. And it's it's not true that you should sacrifice or the needy and
you should sacrifice or this, and you sacrifice, and you shouldn't sacrifice for
anybody. Figure out what your values are, what's important to you, and
go get it, Go, go strive to its. Don't use other people,
don't exploit other people, don't light to other people. Don't you don't
live life as a moral human being. Expect other people to be moral,
But morality means be rational, be you know, honestly. Even honesty,
for rand is different. Right, most people think honesties don't lie, but
lying is the trivial part of honesty. The real issue about honesty is be
committed to reality, Be committed to the facts. Don't lie to yourself.
But it's more than that. When you make when you're making a decision,
when you're making a judgment, make sure you have all the relevant facts.
Make sure you're being objective. Right, That's that's that's the objectivism. So
I think you know, I think you know there's a real opportunity for rebirth
um spiritually, materially, in every respect. By by shrugging off religion,
there's a realization that your life is yours, nobody else's. You get tolive
it, You get to make choices about it. You get to choose your
values. You don't have to accept commandments or the preacher or anybody else's.
You get to choose who to associate it with. You get to choose who
to trade with. Now, yes it's work, Yes it's real responsibility,
but that's part of the fun. Right. Work should be enjoyable responsibility because
it's your responsibility. The rewards also yours. And life is to be enjoyed.
Life is to be enjoyed. You should, You should experience joy.
It's not a grind. And you know, I think original sin is really
tough for people to get over it. I think, you know, you
shouldn't feel guilty. There's nothing to feel guilty about it. At least you've
done something bad. If you've done something bad, feel guilty. But if
you haven't done anything bad, get rid of that guilt. I know Catholics
have a hard time with that, Jews have a hard time with that.
But you should never feel guilty for something you didn't do. Yeah, thank
you for that. That's powerful. Yeah, I'm probably let you go.
Where would you want to direct people to to find you, to engage with
your work and potentially reach out. Yeah, I mean I do a podcast
YouTube thing, you know, every day pretty much six days a week,
so YouTube. If the people look me up on YouTube, I have a
channel there. I'm on all the podcasting apps as well, so if they
if they just want to listen and it's on there. Um, I have
a website, but the website just ultimately refers everybody to YouTube. They can
also find I've got some books. They can search my name on Amazon and
I'll come across some of my books. And of course I encourage everybody to
look up iron Rand and that's that's more important. And uh, you know,
the best resource design iron Rand is is is iron rand dot org a
y n r a nd dot org, which is Ironman Institute's website. Uh.
And of course Scoie de Fountain him M yeah, yeah, of a
blink to all that in the description. Yeah, thank you so much for
coming in the show and talking with me today. It's been a pleasure,
my pleasure. Thank you.