Mike Wallace Interviews Ayn Rand About Objectivism
My dad sent me an incredible thirty minute interview of Ayn Rand by Mike Wallace in 1959 which I just watched on my iPhone during a treadmill run. I’m a fan of Atlas Shrugged
One of the quotes I most love is John Galt’s statement “I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine.” A while ago my mom made a painting out of this quote (it currently hangs in my partner Jason Mendelson’s house.)
Regardless of my philosophical perspective, I thought this interview was fascinating. While it’s 50 years old, the format and content is timeless. I think Ayn Rand was brilliant in her articulation of her philosophy and her perspective and did an excellent job of engaging with Wallace without running him over.
As we exit 2009, I encourage you to watch this, if only to have it stimulate your thinking. I expect some of you will love this and some will hate it, but I challenge anyone to say that “it didn’t cause me to think or react.”
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Thanks for posting this! Seems just as relevant today as 50 years ago…
Thank you for sharing this fascinating interview.
"No good will, only self interests" We can be more selfish and create great things for our communities.
Sophomoric. Belongs in an all night beer party of English majors at a liberal arts college.
Rand has lots of brain cells firing, but the main cause appears to be trying obsessively and emotionally, with disastrously poor insight and judgment, to get some security from some anxieties from something scary in her background.
Wallace reveals much more of his thinking than I have seen before, shows that he is an idiot, that has swallowed some super-simple Upper West Side sophomoric nonsense too common in the MSN now. Should never take seriously the 'thinking' of a newsie!
Rand in some Russian romantic style uses too many terms with special and apparently obscure but omitted definitions.
Both set up straw men to knock them down.
Their foundations for the status quo are too extreme; can support the status quo much more simply and much less provocatively.
Interesting interview to watch going into '10. Thanks for the post.
Thank you very much for posting. I’ve never seen these clips.
You may not remember the Beers With Brad Feld event in Vancouver. But I’m a huge Ayn Rand and Robert Pirsig fan. I don’t necessarily agree with all of Ayn Rands philosophy. However, I have massive respect for a person that writes about work ethic and also publishes multiple works that are +1000 pages.
There are not a whole lot of people in history that talk the talk and walk the walk. And a woman, too. Even more rare.
What’s wrong with an all night beer party of English majors at a liberal arts college?You appear to be in the category of “hated it”, but it does appear to have elicited a reaction!
Who is John Galt?
If you want to take this to an entirely different level of commentary, try putting it in a diary on Daily Kos!
Just kidding; for the love of God, don't do it!
What's wrong with the beer party?
Well, strictly, the most I suggested wrong was that it was "sophomoric"!
I was a sophomore once! I didn't think that either the English class or the beer parties got very far and preferred making progress with mathematics, physics, and my girlfriend! If the English class had actually had any decent understanding of people, emotions, women, and love, then I would have made much faster progress with my girlfriend!
I liked the interview as an exercise. There was a time when I would not have been able to have guessed just what was driving Rand (or Wallace). Of course, can't make such diagnoses from only the interview, BUT: From seeing enough in people begin to see some patterns. Then, from the interview, pick what appears to be a very likely pattern and make the diagnosis!
I read Atlas Shrugged a long time ago. I don't remember the book being as conservative as Rand was. Of course Rand was coming from USSR and wanted to be as far away as from a planned economy as possible – but I remember the book being more about good vs. evil, entrepreneurs vs. the establishment, and smart vs. dumb.
As Rand was so conservative, the objectivists see the book as a prophecy of the current bail outs and social good triumphing over poor management, but there are equal accusations on the prior administration. The Government's lunacy around things like putting oil people in charge of the EPA or the whole FEMA/Katrina thing seem equally right out of Atlas.
I see Atlas Shrugged less political (left/right) and more about how situations get out of control. It doesn't matter if it is visas, stem cells, net neutrality, or patent rules – the establishment can easily threaten innovation – and the innovators may some day leave. Vonnegut wasn't much different, but his satire didn't really hit on wealth redistribution. His "ethical birth control pill" (WttMH) probably hit a few nerves in a similar way.
Well said – I especially love the comparison to Vonnegut’s WttMH – perfect.
I just checked my math and physics books and, yup, I didn't forget; instead, "The Daily Kos" is not in there, I'm pretty sure. Hilbert space and Maxwell's equations I see, but not Kos. Should I check again? I don't think my college girlfriend (I was in college; she was 4 years younger; she understood some things not about calculus) would know either, or about Rand!
No, I looked at something in Kos once, found that they made some serious error in fact, made a note, gave up, and didn't go back. Besides, they seemed to have some hot political agenda, "about what, I have no idea"!
On people, I got much more from E. Fromm than E. lit.
I'm out of my depth here: Below they are discussing Vonnegut, and all I know about him was from the Dangerfield movie 'Back to School'! Since I was once a prof in an MBA program, the B-school part of that movie was terrific, right on target. The Sally Kellerman's English prof's soaring ecstasy over 'writers' is part of why I was glad when required English classes were done!
Ayn Rand was not a conservative.
To define "conservative", one must first recognize that it as a political distinction, and that politics is a branch of philosophy. Politics is an extension of ethics in the context of life as an individual human being into the context of life as in individual living in a society of others. No politics can be formulated or defined or understood independent of its philosophical framework and underpinnings.
Conservatism appeals to one who is an intrinsicist, one for whom absolute truth and value exist independently from man, the identifier and valuer, and are fully accessible only through some other than natural means or source that can serve as the authority.
Possible authorities are many: a god, a religious doctrine or tradition, a bible, history, a Constitution, the Founding Fathers, etc. Such truths are eternal and must be conserved, even in the face of their failure, a dilemma that will be resolved by rationalization. Their downfall is that having rejected reason, their truths cannot be objectively verified and are thus easy prey for erosion (Bush).
Now consider the opposite side of the liberal/conservative dichotomy. They are the subjectivists who discount the capacity of reason in its totality. For them there can be no absolute truths ever. All knowledge is empirical and transient. Its validity is constantly subject to change (Obama) — what was true in the past does not have to be true now. The "progress" of progressive liberals entails perpetual movement from one set of truths to the next and the next and …
So the ultimate source of the left/liberal and right/conservative division is a false alternative turned to in the wake of doubting — to one degree or another — one's own capacity to access objective truths solely by processing the information of sensory perceptions (physical capacity) with one's reason (intellectual capacity). Acceptance of this mind/spirit-body dichotomy forces the choice of one or the other as the source of truth. The need for some system for determining truth cannot be evaded. Life is a series of choices and every choice necessitates a standard.
Since the conservative right holds the ultimate form and nature of knowledge, truth, and reality to be spiritual, it is that aspect of man's life they will want to control and dictate while leaving man free to pursue a material life that is devalued as transient and insignificant. The liberal left discounts the spiritual content of man's mind regarding truth, knowledge and reality as nothing more than a product of emotion and whim without any actual universal significance, and so they leave man free in that realm while seeking control of the material aspect of man's life. As Ayn Rand explained, each will try to control that aspect of man's life that is important to them and leave the rest free.
It is Rand who grasped the intrinsic/subjective dichotomy as the explanation of left-right choices of men that lead them to tyrannize opposing aspects of man's life. Rand's epistemology, ethics and politics reject that dichotomy. By demonstrating how man can derive absolute truths from perceptions with reason by restricting such conclusions to fully evidenced contexts, she replaces the false dichotomy with their integration: the inseparable efficacious interaction of the mind exercising reason applied to physical action as man's essential means to survive and thrive in accordance with his nature.
From that recognition arises an ethical mandate for autonomy in the application of reason to action in the service of life, Further, it is the extension of that mandate into the socio-economic context (politics) requires the concepts of liberty and the individual rights that define it. And since liberty exists only to the degree that physical coercion is absent, Rand's anti-conservative, anti-liberal politics requires that:
No person may initiate the use of physical force to gain, withhold, or destroy any tangible or intangible value owned by another who either created it or acquired it in a voluntary exchange.
It is the requirement of this principle that the sole task of government is to guarantee that all human interactions shall be voluntary that no conservative or liberal could ever endorse.
Extraordinarily well written. Anyone who is interested in a short summary of Rand’s philosophy as contrasted to either “conservative” or “liberal” labels should read this carefully. Your last two paragraphs explaining Rand’s “anti-liberal / anti-conservative” politics is crystal clear.
Thanks for posting the interviews as they have rounded out my view of Ayn and objectivism. I have naively cheered Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden as they fought the system and the unknown force. Their motives were pure and admirable.
Unfortunately, reality is not so clean cut and straightforward. Ayn's comment that "under a free system no one could acquire a monopoly on anything." "…all monopolies have been established with government help" is shortsighted. The robber baron's of the 1900's illustrated what happens when it is survival of the fittest. Here we are over a 100 years later and the same arguments are still playing out only in different industries.
While I applaud the traits that Ayn extols, I have to agree with others that the implementation is akin to a fantasy football league or best left to a beer party discussion.
I’d encourage you to continue to naively cheer Dagny and Hank. Interestingly, if you take Rand’s philosophical view at its simplest incarnation, her assertion “under a free system no one could acquire a monopoly on anything” may work. I actually think she said “on anything of value” – or at least implied it in the discussion around the Nevada uranium deposit. Interestingly, the Robber Barron’s had huge government help – it was definitely not “survival of the fittest.” And today’s government is all over the economic dynamics – there is no free system in existence, only a theory of a free market and an approximation of some free market behavior in the context of a very significant and heavy government involvement.
Post a pic of that Galt quote, why don't you. * there are lots of Ayn Rand audios / videos at http://www.aynrand.org
This one is very good http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=r...
Thanks for posting those interviews; I've not seen them for ages!
Regarding "Atlas Shrugged," you and your readers might find my still-in-progress collection of podcasts on the novel of interest.
http://www.ExploreAtlasShrugged.com
– Diana Hsieh. Ph.D, Philosophy
– http://www.DianaHsieh.com
Thanks, for posting, Brad. Just the other day I was flipping through a recently published book of Ayn Rand interviews, "Objectively Speaking". It has a transcript of this and many other interviews–fascinating stuff.
To understand Rand's position on monopolies it helps to know that she saw a fundamental distinction between economic power and political power. So a coercive monopoly granted to one company by the government, through outlawing competition, is fundamentally different from a "monopoly" a company acquires without government help, just by being the best or most efficient player in the market. I don't think she even considered the latter a monopoly.
Great post – and it's clear Ayn Rand has a sharp brain. Good thinker. I'd be keen to know if her way of looking at things (objectivism) is perfect? Not sure why Mike Wallace didn't ask her if her way is 'perfect' (i.e. – does she think her objectivist views are perfect) for the general society? Is it completely failsafe – if not are objectivist tradeoffs better than collectivist tradeoffs, and if so why?
My opinion – is pretty obvious. You can't either be entirely collectivist or entirely objectivist. Human survival will organically drive people to adopt the path that can get them to success. Like a human body, most of the time the system will self correct based on required levels of performance (just like "reasoning"). Sometimes an external medicine maybe required though.
Long story short – my gut tells me that although objectivism maybe a great start or can keep people naturally in check for long periods of time, ultimately, you will lead into subjectivist (intangible) areas irrespective of what the field is – economy, medicine, software, etc – whatever.
I love this thread and look forward to Brad's posts, especially following a good rest.
I am reminded again, (and take every fair opportunity to remind Brad) that Ayn wrote novels; fiction in fact otherwise known as contrafactual events. No doubt she promotes interesting theories through her fictional world, but it remains, fiction.
Her theories may have seen wider accession if written as fables instead of the heavy-handed messaging promoted by her writing style and behavior.
I am also reminded of the preponderance of Objectivists (many of whom are my friends) who attended MIT. Is there something in the water?
For what it's worth, Objectivists are generally not fans of the Bush administration, and would agree that there are faults on both sides of the aisle. Remember, the current wave of bank bailouts started under Bush! And Ayn Rand didn't consider herself a conservative at all–see MichaelM's comment.
It’s probably in the beer, not in the water. Or maybe other substances that college students partake in.While Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead were fiction, don’t forget that Rand wrote plenty of non-fiction such as For the New Intellectual, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, as well as a significant number of essays. I’ve read some of it and found some of as impenetrable as I find some other philosophy (which means I ask my wife Amy, or my friend Dave Jilk, who have much more patience with philosophy, to explain it to me in simple terms, which they occasionally succeed at.)I personally enjoy the heavy handedness of both her writing and behavior – I find it intriguing and stimulating. I also am entertained by the polarization it drives – people are very binary in their response (love it or hate it), especially when underlying it she’s quite clear that it’s simply her philosophy.
The sad thing is, it's impossible to imagine such a substantive interview on a major network these days. Even 60 Minutes tends toward gotcha sensationalism over nuance.
Yes, a lot of us Objectivists are MIT alums. Would it be too self-serving to say it's because we're smarter? Yeah, it would. Okay, try this: engineers tend to respect both rationality and innovations to conquer nature. That's what her novels celebrate. Hank Rearden, in Atlas Shrugged, invents a new metal alloy, John Galt invests a motor that runs off of atmospheric static electricity (which actually has been done, by the way).
Another factor: she spoke at MIT in 1962 (I was in the audience) and appeared for almost 20 years, annually, at the Ford Hall Forum in Boston.
Interesting that the popularity amongst MIT alums is being discussed here. I'm in the middle of Atlas Shrugged and was just contemplating how the same values/characteristics displayed by Hank Rearden and Dagny Taggart are upheld by MIT students.
I think Harry's right, revering rationality and conquering the natural world are part of it But I also think MIT students tend to self-identify heavily with Hank and Dagny for some other reasons : they're ambitious, very tired, and over-worked.
In addition to being ambitious, very tired, and over-worked, they often feel it is “them against the world.” Or at least I felt that way when I was at MIT. I like to describe MIT undergrads as being segmented into three categories. 10% are off the charts brilliant. 40% are super smart and figure out how to make it through MIT (I put myself in this category). 50% are very smart / super smart and are miserable every day they are there until they graduate. MIT – more than any other school I’ve been exposed to – in a constant assault on one’s self esteem.
On The Fountainhead http://ryeberg.com/?p=6142&preview=true
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