Ayn Rand Interview w/ Tom Snyder

what is the camera can I know I don't know you look right at Tom that'll be fine now here's ein ran who was the author as I say of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and the other one I can't remember because it's a longer title Ivan now no no no not the novel but the new book that you have out Objectivist introduction to Objectivist epistemology exactly now you said that you wouldn't mind yes we are you said that you wouldn't mind if I didn't read that book you told that to my stare okay and I didn't I confess that to you I want to be very basic here because there are many people who don't understand objectivism who don't know what it is but who have read much about iron Rand and have read her books and kind of want to know where she's coming from if I can use that phrase so let's just basically say what objectivism is okay and make a long speech above all not too long because that's terribly difficult you know to begin with it's a philosophy it's a philosophic system and philosophies the science that studies the basic nature of existence so it's a pretty technical subject and anything I say brief we will not really do justice to my philosophy but I can try to summarize well can I ask you some specifics then about yes sure right how does quote I fit into the philosophy of Objectivism how does objectivism relate to me the individual what does it do for me are you a human being mm-hmm doesn't relate to it tells you how to lead your life and how to achieve things how to be happy it tells you the fundamental principles by which you can make your own choices above all it tells you that you have the means to make these choices that your mind is valid the reality you perceive really exists and that is a pistol knology mm-hmm that's a branch of philosophy and it then it tells you how to make the base by what principles to guide the basic choices of your life now there are many philosophies that would offer that to an individual oh yes there are religions that offer it there all forms of government that offer it how does not firms of government that's politics that's a different branch that comes in Aten well yes but government's in some areas in some instances would define for you choices or dictate to you here how to live your life yeah but I'll retract governments and just say religions our philosophies are how does objectivism differ from the philosophies that many of us have been exposed to in our use of philosophies based upon religions theologians dogmatists the very first difference objectivism tells you that it is not right it is not proper to men to take anything on faith religion is a matter of faith you accept a religion emotionally or because you were born to it you have not chosen it rationally what objectivism will tell you is that reason man's reason is his basic means of survival that is the most important faculty which he has and he has to guide his life and make his choices by means of his rational faculty he has to make his own choices but he has to know how to make them it is immoral for him to act on his emotions to be guided by the whim of the moment that objectives mahal has very wrong very moral and morality in fact consists of following your reason to the best of your ability so that rationality is the basic virtue from which all the answers proceed no then you believe this for yourself you're not you accept this philosophy it has guided your life it has yes it has brought me where I am okay so that you believe in mine Rand first and foremost okay not necessarily a god or a nor a hail or a government or some other people or forces beyond your control but you believe in you I wouldn't put it that way I could say that yes it still to some extent but it's very inexact because it's just a matter of faith I have confidence in my own rational ability but more than that I also know that if I had less abilities and I have no matter what happened to me my mind is all that I have to guide me so that if I or me or the lowest girl in the class mentally which I never was the same morality would apply to me how smarter you brought this up knowing that you were not the dumbest girl in the class know how smart were you in school you were a little girl hey yeah I was the top student in I went to different schools into different cities and I was the top students there in addition to being the top student did they ever measure your intelligence and tell your mom and dad oh this girl is so bright this girl is a jewel no buy in my time they didn't have those testing not inertia but you knew that you were smart oh yes did you feel that school was too slow it was so far ahead of the material yes how did you handle that how did you school yourself really beyond the curriculum or curriculum school yes it really is I always try to sit in the back role of a class and I put a book in front of me and I was writing novels from the age of 10 I was writing screenplays at 8 but I was writing novels in class because I was otherwise I would be terribly bored I was never discovered because we have textbooks and if you read ahead of the lesson that they present in class you could know what the teacher said I had to read the textbook just once and then I knew the course so I I really think it had a bad influence on me on my working discipline it was too easy and too boring but how did it affect your working disappointed them I never had to make an effort I certainly did have to when I began writing novels that's really difficult but in school I had no difficulty how was writing novels difficult for you because it's an enormous context that you have to keep in mind an enormous structure you can't do it inspiration you can't do it by just looking at a piece of paper once and deciding what you're going to do it's a whole enormous structure much more complicated than a building and you have to keep it all in mind never contradict your outline and carry it out it's killing difficult but wonderful when you succeeded mm-hmm I'm gonna good no do you recall what the first novel was you wrote when you were 10 years old behind that book in the back row in school the very first one I remember the first screenplay or the novel I never finished that wait a moment no I did fissioned yes I remembered the one I didn't finish I started in college I remember but don't make me tell you the plan no I will not but I would like to think that somewhere that manuscript is in a drawer in your house or in a box up in a closet it's probably a bombed out of existence women any good so it exists and only in your mind yeah I didn't bring it with me when did you discover or think up or allow objectivism to become your philosophy from the time that I remember myself which is doing a half the first things in my life I can remember I was two and a half and from that time on to the present time that was changed my convictions only at two and a half I didn't know as much as I know now but the fundamental approach was the same I've never had to change why has it worked for you because it's true because it corresponds to reality because it is the right philosophy by true I mean it corresponds to reality therefore it permits me to deal with reality properly and he first of all tells me I have to use my judgement not my emotions hi judge why do you think that religions have attracted more people to their philosophies than objectivism has attracted people to its well first of all they had much longer time no remember religion is older than objectivism I don't think I would want to attract as many people's religions though but the real and serious answer is this religion is a primitive form of philosophy because what religion philosophy have in common is that it's a system of background premises it gives you a frame of reference a context in fundamental terms and then you leave the completes of your life accordingly so religion it's primitive can't philosophy if you want to it gives you can dancers and it says here you can rely on it you don't need to think it will tell you what to do in practically every situation just obey us take us on face well why do people accept it because nobody can live without the philosophy even the most primitive unthinking man needs something to tie all of his actions ideas she slide together he needs integration religion provides to him ready-made philosophy properly does the same thing but he offers an idea context to his mind and it demands of him that he judged that he used his own intelligence to understand and then to accept the kind of basic premises that he'll live his life life in my youth I was well schooled in religious doctrine and I would not for a second say to you that I now believe in it as dogmatically as I did when I was a young person and had at orphanage all right but I still wouldn't want to think that all of us pass through the experience of life and then when it comes to an end that's simply the end of it and it has no other purpose I'm kind of trapped there I would like to think that there is something beyond the end of the six thing we call life but then supposing you're convinced that the reason what difference would it make to you know Oh make a tremendous difference to me you know I think so but for the better well you see I think for the worse why wouldn't I I wouldn't like to believe that when this body dies that this spirit is all it is now gone that it's a it's a it's it's defeated it's not not defeat think of it the other way if you know that this life is all that you have wouldn't you make the most of it well life I don't enjoy this life I'll have limitless number of life's coming if I can be wasteful of my own life no I don't think that I don't think that I would want to waste a second of this I do waste some seconds and I'll bet iron Rand wastes some oil some seconds or is it not wasted yes you mean I'm doing nothing with everything just drifting well or creatively wasting can you wish that's a all right but I still would like to think not that I want to come back as a Maharajah or anything like that but I just I kind of think of this whole thing is ongoing that there is an eternity and that we are going to be a part of that eternity that we aren't just corpses and graves when we die but we aren't purposes and griefs we are not there there to understand that when this life is finished you're not there to say oh how terrible that I'm a corpse know what this is true it's finished and what I've always thought was a sentence from some Greek philosopher I don't unfortunately remember who it was that I read at 16 and it's affected me all my life I will not die it's the waddle that will end and that's absolutely true and you're for me now it should be a serious wish because my time is fairly limited and I have the same feeling that I will enjoy life to the last moment and once the end I don't have to worry about it I'm not there it's too bad that the world will end then I think of the very wonderful world will end with me but I've had my time I can't complain I know and does not fear death does she know only the death of someone I love but not my own how design ran philosopher view the United States of America today people waiting in gasoline lines people fearing a possible recession people wondering whether we will survive as a nation because of military posturing by other countries around the world tell me how you feel that's a pretty big statement right there but first of all to sum it up I feel that this country is being destroyed by its philosophy specifically by its universe the most dangerous thing in this country today are the universities because they're teaching the kind of ideas that would necessarily have to lead to the destruction of this country I think that the American people is too good for that kind of program you'll notice that the people are turning to the right that's a very healthy sign but there is no leadership and on the right there is no intellectual leadership there are no ideas and it's very possible that the people will be defeated for lack of proper intellectual leadership however the basic premise is business but then you don't mean Harvard intellectual leadership or Yale intellectual leadership I mean a heroine that would be preaching American ideas more specifically reason individualism capitalism if an institution of the intellectual prestige which they don't deserve today but they deserved it at one time of Harvard if an institution of that magnitude were preaching the proper ideas that is the ideas on which America originally was based or to me say it briefly the philosophy of Aristotle which was the father of this country who was if they were doing that you could have the biggest renaissance in the world still not too late even now you could have a better renaissance in the first one this country would come back to life but today when all those institutions from Harvard arm down are preaching collectivism mysticism and above all altruism self-sacrifice of yourself then giving up the resignation this all the disgusting kind of ideas that the whole world has been nurturing for centuries when they do that this country can survive can you give me a can you be a little bit more specific I've never been to Harvard I've never been to class there but can you give me an advantage oh thank you of how they are teaching sacrifice how they are teaching altruism well open failure paper and look at mr. Cardinal a peculiar creature who is telling us that we are going to overcome the oil shortage by driving this by giving up let us all make a sacrifice let's lower our standard of living and we'll all be living better now is that a proper philosophy to tell a country that has pride and self esteem at one time with all the faults in American intellectual equipment and there were a lot of holes at least till people were taught pride in their own country and in the good aspects the great achievements of this country today you're supposed to apologize to every naked savage and you were on the globe because we were more because you've earned your money you have to feel guilty and apologize with well he hasn't and doesn't intend to learn from you he just wants your money that's what we're being told why are we being told because the ruling philosopher today in Harvard and everywhere else is Immanuel Kant and that's the real villain of our age it's not in my view mean he's the one yes that is the one okay it's not Karl Marx and it's not even religion so I do not approve of religion as you know but those are not the villains the villains is Immanuel Kant who preached that man's mind is not valid that the things you perceive are not there they're not real things in themselves as hippies are something which exists in another dimension your world is only phenomenal as he called it and then there is this nominal world which you cannot perceive in any way whatever and that nominal world is the true reality only you can perceive it so you better live here on earth and do your duty and your duty is some kind of voice that comes from these other dimensions which you can't know or how does he know he doesn't tell you but he tells you that morally you have to do your duty what does your duty consist of of doing things in which you can take no possible interest and no advantage to yourself you know that he is even worse than an altruist and all trees will tell you you shouldn't be happy but you should sacrifice for other people and then your model count goes beyond it he says if you do things because you have any goal whatever even the welfare of others your action is not moral or a support that action is not moral or as he puts it it has no moral significance to be the truly moral you should do things out of which you get nothing whatever neither for yourself nor for others if you can achieve that kind of being a total zero offered for being eaten by any cannibal than your morrow now that's the philosopher who rules today's life if that is what the universities are preaching count himself and all the endless variations of him and the derivatives from him all modern philosophy our little illegitimate conscience if you know what I mean if that's what children are taught once they leave college what do they bring to her what you see today we're kind of reaching the visible climax of can change easily there take dope they try to kill their mind in every way possible they leave range of the moments they have no values no goals and no selfishness was it terribly unselfish because I haven't got one independent ID in the world tell me the value of selfishness use another word self-esteem the value of selfishness is that you esteem yourself as a value that you live according to your nature which means by the judgment of your own mind and you respect your own mind you respect your own ability to do the right thing therefore your respect the possibility of being morally virtuous person and you regard yourself as a value worth preserving let me bring it down from a little bit to a bromide that I had drummed into me as a child and maybe you've heard it happiness comes from making other people happy oh yes that who hasn't heard it and that's the trouble let's aim at the day when people will not hear it anymore because it isn't true it isn't justifiable and the first question you would have to ask is why why is it good to want others to be happy but not yourself and I suppose you will be told that well but they will work for your happiness and not their own well it's like an exchange or Christmas presents that neither party wants but there you have to exchange present and you're not allowed morally to do something for yourself what is what I say you can make others happy when and if those others mean something to you selfishly if you love them then you want to make some it fine if you don't love them that's not a moral crime you don't have to love everybody you cannot love everybody because the meaning of this expression you can love only those whom you value and if they contribute to your happiness you contribute to theirs that's fine but each one of you has to be selfish about it supposing somebody were in love with you and said I love you because you're so bad so I sacrifice myself and I'm going to love you would you accept that or do you say it's the most no sir I wouldn't either that's the most insulting saying anyone could have said to you and yet that's what altruism would demand and there is a great Russian writer who tried to practice it the styrsky who did marry a poor stupid little seamstress who whom he didn't love it all out of the desire to make her happy see the end of it was she committed suicide now that is an altruist practice that's what altruism leads to how about it's more blessed to give than to receive well that's obviously the welfare state that's a clearly motivated slogan so please give me something and you'll be blessed but I will keep your your material goods now you don't mind getting presents to you yes I do do you really only from the people whom I love or friends or my husband but that's what I mean yes that I like but from strangers I don't accept it no but within your family and the people that you care deeply about you would give them a present too oh yes certainly when I wanted to but I wouldn't consider that the moral duty and I wouldn't consider that a virtue at all but you were saying may I bring up something that we were discussing during the commercial the what sing today is the attacks on ability the I called this today's atmosphere the age of envy actually and I asked you whether you would be attacked by people for your success and I don't know whether you want to give the answer to the audience and you gave me yes yes I am well that's what I regard as the most immortal thing on earth to attack a man not for his clothes but for his virtues because to make a success of yourself in any line of rational activity is a great virtue and they people will attack you for exercising your ability for hard work for consistency for ambition and they will want to make you feel guilty sad is the greatest evil according to my philosophy and let's say that again the greatest evil according to your philosophy is to attack an individual because of virtue what I call it is to experience or act on hatred of the good for being the good that is attacking people for diverges for their achievements for anything they have which is a value actually not for their clothes and not for their evil in fact people who preach that are the ones who are mortgage about the evil people the fairs the liar and the cheats everybody who is weak suddenly acquires some kind of value but anyone who is a success has to be attacked for his success and look at how you have been attacked all right you have been criticized that's in dirt there are many people in this country forgive me in this world who think you're daft say don't they want you to see man well I hear you okay okay obviously white because I'm preaching something absolutely totally the opposite of the Kantian philosophy but with Chinese tension and their images what do you thinks gonna happen to the United States of America if we keep going this way if we keep won't just wait till the collapse but I still think that we won't be going this way that what will save this country is not its intellectuals but the people because they've rebelled already without much intellectual project that they've already becoming aware of the fact that we have to go to the right and not more welfare state that's a great great dream it to the intelligence of the people only I want to make something clear I'm not a conservative I think that today's conservatives are worse than today's liberals I think they are if anyone destroys this country it will be the Conservatives because they do not know how to preach capitalism to explain it to the people because they do nothing except apologize and because they're all altruists they're all based on religious altruism and on that combination of ideas you cannot save this country the trouble with this country is that it was based on the right philosophy originally by the founding fathers but they did not have a moral code to match the the political ideas which they have you love this country don't you passionately very very much and consciously I love it for its ideas and I've seen enough of the other side so I can appreciate distant you might even get emotional about this country huh oh yes what he wanted to gather emotion might even thank God for it huh yeah I may not literally mean that God but I like what that expression means thank God or God bless you it means the highest possible to me and I would say certainly thank God for this country and thank you for being here tonight so come down thank you very much for asking me I enjoyed it okay and please come back and God bless you saying the same thing

Channel: MaTeOWaNnA CoMeDy ReMaStErZ

Views: 15,663

Keywords: ayn rand, ayn rand interview, ayn rand first interview, ayn rand tv, ayn rand debate, ayn rand remastered, old interview, libertarian, libertarianism, austrian economics, economics, religeon, tom snyder ayn rand

Id: Qj-UvNXorb4

Length: 28min 58sec (1738 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 29 2020