The Ayn Rand Lexicon - Objectivism From A To Z Part 35

"Psychologizing." Just as reasoning, to an irrational person, becomes rationalizing, and moral judgment becomes moralizing, so psychological theories become psychologizing. The common denominator is the corruption of a cognitive process to serve an ulterior motive.

Psychologizing consists in condemning or excusing specific individuals on the grounds of their psychological problems, real or invented, in the absence of or contrary to factual evidence.

["The Psychology of 'Psychologizing,' " TO, March 1971, 2.]

While the racket of the philosophizing mystics rested on the claim that man is unable to know the external world, the racket of the psychologizing mystics rests on the claim that man is unable to know his own motivation.

[Ibid., 4.]

Armed with a smattering, not of knowledge, but of undigested slogans, they rush, unsolicited, to diagnose the problems of their friends and acquaintances. Pretentiousness and presumptuousness are the psychologizer's invariable characteristics: he not merely invades the privacy of his victims' minds, he claims to understand their minds better than they do, to know more than they do about their own motives. With reckless irresponsibility, which an old-fashioned mystic oracle would hesitate to match, he ascribes to his victims any motivation that suits his purpose, ignoring their denials. Since he is dealing with the great "unknowable" -which used to be life after death or extrasensory perception, but is now man's subconscious-all rules of evidence, logic and proof are suspended, and anything goes (which is what attracts him to his racket).

[Ibid., 2.]

A man's moral character must be judged on the basis of his actions, his statements and his conscious convictions-not on the basis of inferences (usually, spurious) about his subconscious.

A man is not to be condemned or excused on the grounds of the state of his subconscious.

[Ibid., 5.]

See also ARGUMENT from INTIMIDATION; CHARACTER; MORAL JUDGMENT; MYSTICISM; PSYCHOLOGY; RATIONALIZATION; SUBCONSCIOUS.

Psychology. The task of evaluating the processes of man's subconscious is the province of psychology. Psychology does not regard its subject morally, but medically-i.e., from the aspect of health or malfunction (with cognitive competence as the proper standard of health).

["The Psychology of 'Psychologizing,' " TO, March 1971, 5.]

As a science, psychology is barely making its first steps. It is still in the anteroom of science, in the stage of observing and gathering material from which a future science will come. This stage may be compared to the pre-Socratic period in philosophy; psychology has not yet found a Plato, let alone an Aristotle, to organize its material, systematize its problems and define its fundamental principles.

[Ibid., 2.]

In psychology, one school holds that man, by nature, is a helpless, guilt-ridden, instinct-driven automaton-white another school objects that this is not true, because there is no scientific evidence to prove that man is conscious.

["Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World," PWNI, 86; pb 71.]

Psychology departments have a sprinkling of Freudians, but are dominated by Behaviorism, whose leader is B. F. Skinner. (Here the controversy is between the claim that man is moved by innate ideas, and the claim that he has no ideas at all.) ["Fairness Doctrine for Education," PWNI, 235; pb 192.]

See Conceptual Index: Psychology.

"Public Interest," the. Since there is no such ent.i.ty as "the public," since the public is merely a number of individuals, any claimed or implied conflict of "the public interest" with private interests means that the interests of some men are to be sacrificed to the interests and wishes of others. Since the concept is so conveniently undefinable, its use rests only on any given gang's ability to proclaim that "The public, c'est moi" -and to maintain the claim at the point of a gun.

["The Monument Builders," VOS, 116; pb 88.]

So long as a concept such as "the public interest" (or the "social" or "national" or "international" interest) is regarded as a valid principle to guide legislation-lobbies and pressure groups will necessarily continue to exist. Since there is no such ent.i.ty as "the public," since the public is merely a number of individuals, the idea that "the public interest" supersedes private interests and rights, can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others.

If so, then all men and all private groups have to fight to the death for the privilege of being regarded as "the public." The government's policy has to swing like an erratic pendulum from group to group, hitting some and favoring others, at the whim of any given moment-and so grotesque a profession as lobbying (selling "influence") becomes a full-time job. If parasitism, favoritism, corruption, and greed for the unearned did not exist, a mixed economy would bring them into existence.

Since there is no rational justification for the sacrifice of some men to others, there is no objective criterion by which such a sacrifice can be guided in practice. All "public interest" legislation (and any distribution of money taken by force from some men for the unearned benefit of others) comes down ultimately to the grant of an undefined, undefinable, non-objective, arbitrary power to some government officials.

The worst aspect of it is not that such a power can be used dishonestly, but that it cannot be used honestly. The wisest man in the world, with the purest integrity, cannot find a criterion for the just, equitable, rational application of an unjust, inequitable, irrational principle.

["The Pull Peddlers," CUI, 170.]

There is no such thing as "the public interest" except as the sum of the interests of individual men. And the basic, common interest of all men-all rational men-is freedom. Freedom is the first requirement of "the public interest"-not what men do when they are free, but that they are free. All their achievements rest on that foundation-and cannot exist without it.

The principles of a free, non-coercive social system are the only form of "the public interest."

["The Fascist New Frontier," pamphlet, 13.]

I could say to you that you do not serve the public good-that n.o.body's good can be achieved at the price of human sacrifices-that when you violate the rights of one man, you have violated the rights of all, and a public of rightless creatures is doomed to destruction. I could say to you that you will and can achieve nothing but universal devastation -as any looter must, when he runs out of victims. I could say it, but I won't. It is not your particular policy that I challenge, but your moral premise. If it were true that men could achieve their good by means of turning some men into sacrificial animals, and I were asked to immolate myself for the sake of creatures who wanted to survive at the price of my blood, if I were asked to serve the interests of society apart from, above and against my own-I would refuse, I would reject it as the most contemptible evil, I would fight it with every power I possess, I would fight the whole of mankind, if one minute were all I could last before I were murdered, I would fight in the full confidence of the justice of my battle and of a living being's right to exist. Let there be no misunderstanding about me. If it is now the belief of my fellow men, who call themselves the public, that their good requires victims, then I say: The public good be d.a.m.ned, I will have no part of it!

["The Moral Meaning of Capitalism," FNI, 116; pb 98.]

See also CAPITALISM; COLLECTIVISM; "COMMON GOOD"; FREEDOM; INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS; LOBBYING; MIXED ECONOMY; SACRIFICE; SOCIETY; WELFARE STATE.

Public Property. When you clamor for public ownership of the means of production, you are clamoring for public ownership of the mind.

[GS, FNI, 208; pb 166.]

Since "public property" is a collectivist fiction, since the public as a whole can neither use nor dispose of its "property," that "property" will always be taken over by some political "elite," by a small clique which will then rule the public-a public of literal, dispossessed proletarians.

["The Property Status of Airwaves," CUI, 128.]

See also COLLECTIVISM; GOVERNMENT; PROPERTY RIGHTS.

Purchasing Power. Purchasing power is an attribute of producers, not of consumers. Purchasing power is a consequence of production: it is the power of possessing goods which one can trade for other goods. A "purchase" is an exchange of goods (or services) for goods (or services). Any other form of transferring goods from one person to another may belong to many different categories of transactions, but it is not a purchase. It may be a gift, a loan, an inheritance, a handout, a fraud, a theft, a robbery, a burglary, an expropriation. In regard to services, however (omitting temporary or occasional acts of friendship, in which the payment is the friend's value), there is only one alternative to trading: unpaid services, i.e., slavery.

["Hunger and Freedom," ARL, III, 22, 3.]

See also CAPITALISM; CONSUMPTION; CREDIT; ECONOMIC POWER vs. POLITICAL POWER; FREE MARKET; INFLATION; MONEY; PRODUCTION; TRADER PRINCIPLE.

Purpose. The three cardinal values of the Objectivist ethics-the three values which, together, are the means to and the realization of one's ultimate value, one's own life-are: Reason, Purpose, Self-Esteem, with their three corresponding virtues: Rationality, Productiveness, Pride.

Productive work is the central purpose of a rational man's life, the central value that integrates and determines the hierarchy of all his other values. Reason is the source, the precondition of his productive work-pride is the result.

["The Objectivist Ethics," VOS, 19; pb 25.]

A central purpose serves to integrate all the other concerns of a man's life. It establishes the hierarchy, the relative importance, of his values, it saves him from pointless inner conflicts, it permits him to enjoy life on a wide scale and to carry that enjoyment into any area open to his mind; whereas a man without a purpose is lost in chaos. He does not know what his values are. He does not know how to judge. He cannot tell what is or is not important to him, and, therefore, he drifts helplessly at the mercy of any chance stimulus or any whim of the moment. He can enjoy nothing. He spends his life searching for some value which he will never find....

The man without a purpose is a man who drifts at the mercy of random feelings or unidentified urges and is capable of any evil, because he is totally out of control of his own life. In order to be in control of your life, you have to have a purpose-a productive purpose....

The man who has no purpose, but has to act, acts to destroy others. That is not the same thing as a productive or creative purpose.

["Playboy's Interview with Ayn Rand," pamphlet, 6.]

See also CAREER; PRIDE; PRODUCTIVENESS; RATIONALITY; REASON; STANDARD of VALUE; ULTIMATE VALUE; VALUES.

Pursuit of Happiness, Right to. The Right to the Pursuit of Happiness means man's right to live for himself, to choose what const.i.tutes his own private, personal, individual happiness and to work for its achievement, so long as he respects the same right in others. It means that man cannot be forced to devote his life to the happiness of another man nor of any number of other men. It means that the collective cannot decide what is to be the purpose of a man's existence nor prescribe his choice of happiness.

["Textbook of Americanism," pamphlet, 5.]

Observe, in this context, the intellectual precision of the Founding Fathers: they spoke of the right to the pursuit of happiness-not of the right to happiness. It means that a man has the right to take the actions he deems necessary to achieve his happiness; it does not mean that others must make him happy.

["Man's Rights," VOS, 129; pb 97.]

See also FOUNDING FATHERS; HAPPINESS; INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS; SELFISHNESS.

Pyramid of Ability. When you live in a rational society, where men are free to trade, you receive an incalculable bonus: the material value of your work is determined not only by your effort, but by the effort of the best productive minds who exist in the world around you.

When you work in a modern factory, you are paid, not only for your labor, but for all the productive genius which has made that factory possible: for the work of the industrialist who built it, for the work of the investor who saved the money to risk on the untried and the new, for the work of the engineer who designed the machines of which you are pushing the levers, for the work of the inventor who created the product which you spend your time on making, for the work of the scientist who discovered the laws that went into the making of that product, for the work of the philosopher who taught men how to think and whom you spend your time denouncing.

The machine, the frozen form of a living intelligence, is the power that expands the potential of your life by raising the productivity of your time. If you worked as a blacksmith in the mystics' Middle Ages, the whole of your earning capacity would consist of an iron bar produced by your hands in days and days of effort. How many tons of rail do you produce per day if you work for Hank Rearden? Would you dare to claim that the size of your pay check was created solely by your physical labor and that those rails were the product of your muscles? The standard of living of that blacksmith is all that your muscles are worth; the rest is a gift from Hank Rearden.

[GS, FNI, 233; pb 185.]

In proportion to the mental energy he spent, the man who creates a new invention receives but a small percentage of his value in terms of material payment, no matter what fortune he makes, no matter what millions he earns. But the man who works as a janitor in the factory producing that invention, receives an enormous payment in proportion to the mental effort that his job requires of him. And the same is true of all men between, on all levels of ambition and ability. The man at the top of the intellectual pyramid contributes the most to all those below him, but gets nothing except his material payment, receiving no intellectual bonus from others to add to the value of his time. The man at the bottom who, left to himself, would starve in his hopeless inept.i.tude, contributes nothing to those above him, but receives the bonus of all of their brains. Such is the nature of the "compet.i.tion" between the strong and the weak of the intellect. Such is the pattern of "exploitation" for which you have d.a.m.ned the strong.

[Ibid., 234; pb 186.]

See also CAPITALISM; COMPEt.i.tION; CREATORS; FREE MARKET; INVESTMENT; MEDIOCRITY; PRODUCTION; PRODUCTIVENESS; TECHNOLOGY.

Q.

Quotas. The notion of racial quotas is so obviously an expression of racism that no lengthy discussion is necessary. If a young man is barred from a school or a job because the quota for his particular race has been filled, he is barred by reason of his race. Telling him that those admitted are his "representatives," is adding insult to injury. To demand such quotas in the name of fighting racial discrimination, is an obscene mockery.

["Representation Without Authorization," ARI,. I. 21, 2.]

The quota doctrine a.s.sumes that all members of a given physiological group are identical and interchangeable-not merely in the eyes of other people, but in their own eyes and minds. a.s.suming a total merging of the self with the group, the doctrine holds that it makes no difference to a man whether he or his "representative" is admitted to a school, gets a job. or makes a decision.

[Ibid., 3.]

The inversion of all standards-the propagation of racism as antiracist, of injustice as just, of immorality as moral, and the reasoning behind it, which is worse than the offenses-is flagrantly evident in the policy of preferential treatment for minorities (i.e., racial quotas) in employment and education.

["Moral Inflation," ARL, III, 14, 1.]

No man, neither Negro nor white, has any claim to the property of another man. A man's rights are not violated by a private individual's refusal to deal with him. Racism is an evil, irrational and morally contemptible doctrine-but doctrines cannot be forbidden or prescribed by law. Just as we have to protect a communist's freedom of speech, even though his doctrines are evil, so we have to protect a racist's right to the use and disposal of his own property. Private racism is not a legal, but a moral issue-and can be fought only by private means, such as economic boycott or social ostracism.

["Racism," VOS, 184; pb 134.]

See also "ETHNICITY"; PROPERTY RIGHTS: RACISM: TRIBALISM.

R.

Racism. Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man's genetic tineage-the notion that a man's intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.

Racism claims that the content of a man's mind (not his cognitive apparatus, but its content) is inherited; that a man's convictions, values and character are determined before he is born, by physical factors beyond his control. This is the caveman's version of the doctrine of innate ideas-or of inherited knowledge-which has been thoroughly refuted by philosophy and science. Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes. It is a barnyard or stock-farm version of collectivism, appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of animals, but not between animals and men.

Like every form of determinism, racism invalidates the specific attribute which distinguishes man from all other living species: his rational faculty. Racism negates two aspects of man's life: reason and choice, or mind and morality, replacing them with chemical predestination.

["Racism." VOS, 172; pb 126.]

A genius is a genius, regardless of the number of morons who belong to the same race-and a moron is a moron, regardless of the number of geniuses who share his racial origin.

[Ibid., 174; pb 127.]

Like every other form of collectivism, racism is a quest for the unearned. It is a quest for automatic knowledge-for an automatic evaluation of men's characters that bypa.s.ses the responsibility of exercising rational or moral judgment-and, above all, a quest for an automatic self-esteem (or pseudo-self-esteem).

[Ibid.]

Today, racism is regarded as a crime if practiced by a majority-but as an inalienable right if practiced by a minority. The notion that one's culture is superior to all others solely because it represents the traditions of one's ancestors, is regarded as chauvinism if claimed by a majority- but as "ethnic" pride if claimed by a minority. Resistance to change and progress is regarded as reactionary if demonstrated by a majority-but retrogression to a Balkan village, to an Indian tepee or to the jungle is hailed if demonstrated by a minority.

["The Age of Envy," NL, 167.]

See also ANTI-CONCEPTUAL MENTALITY; COLLECTIVISM; DETERMINISM; "ETHNICITY"; FASCISM/n.a.z.iSM; FREE WILL; INDIVIDUALISM; POLYLOGISM; REASON; SELF-ESTEEM; SOVIET RUSSIA; TRIBALISM.

1"Rand's Razor." The requirements of cognition determine the objective criteria of conceptualization. They can be summed up best in the form of an epistemological "razor": concepts are not to be multiplied beyond necessity-the corollary of which is: nor are they to be integrated in disregard of necessity.

[ITOE, 96.].

The requirements of cognition forbid the arbitrary grouping of existents, both in regard to isolation and to integration. They forbid the random coining of special concepts to designate any and every group of existents with any possible combination of characteristics. For example, there is no concept to designate "Beautiful blondes with blue eyes, 5'5" tall and 24 years old." Such ent.i.ties or groupings are identified descriptively. If such a special concept existed, it would lead to senseless duplication of cognitive effort (and to conceptual chaos): everything of significance discovered about that group would apply to all other young women as well. There would be no cognitive justification for such a concept-unless some essential characteristic were discovered, distinguishing such blondes from all other women and requiring special study, in which case a special concept would become necessary....

In the process of determining conceptual cla.s.sification, neither the essential similarities nor the essential differences among existents may be ignored, evaded or omitted once they have been observed. Just as the requirements of cognition forbid the arbitrary subdivision of concepts, so they forbid the arbitrary integration of concepts into a wider concept by means of obliterating their essential differences-which is an error (or falsification) proceeding from definitions by non-essentials. (This is the method involved in the obliteration of valid concepts by means of "anti-concepts.") [ITOE, 94.].

See also "ANTI-CONCEPTS"; CONCEPT-FORMATION; CONCEPTS; DEFINITIONS; INTEGRATION (MENTAL); INVALID CONCEPTS; OBJECTIVITY; "PACKAGE-DEALlNG," FALLACY of; UNIT-ECONOMY.

Rationality. Rationality is man's basic virtue, the source of all his other virtues. Man's basic vice, the source of all his evils, is the act of unfocusing his mind, the suspension of his consciousness, which is not blindness, but the refusal to see, not ignorance, but the refusal to know. Irrationality is the rejection of man's means of survival and, therefore, a commitment to a course of blind destruction; that which is anti-mind, is anti-life.

The virtue of Rationality means the recognition and acceptance of reason as one's only source of knowledge, one's only judge of values and one's only guide to action. It means one's total commitment to a state of full, conscious awareness, to the maintenance of a full mental focus in all issues, in all choices, in all of one's waking hours. It means a commitment to the fullest perception of reality within one's power and to the constant, active expansion of one's perception, i.e., of one's knowledge. It means a commitment to the reality of one's own existence, i.e., to the principle that all of one's goals, values and actions take place in reality and, therefore, that one must never place any value or consideration whatsoever above one's perception of reality. It means a commitment to the principle that all of one's convictions, values, goals, desires and actions must be based on, derived from, chosen and validated by a process of thought-as precise and scrupulous a process of thought, directed by as ruthlessly strict an application of logic, as one's fullest capacity permits. It means one's acceptance of the responsibility of forming one's own judgments and of living by the work of one's own mind (which is the virtue of Independence). It means that one must never sacrifice one's convictions to the opinions or wishes of others (which is the virtue of Integrity)-that one must never attempt to fake reality in any manner (which is the virtue of Honesty)-that one must never seek or grant the unearned and undeserved, neither in matter nor in spirit (which is the virtue of Justice). It means that one must never desire effects without causes, and that one must never enact a cause without a.s.suming full responsibility for its effects-that one must never act like a zombie, i.e., without knowing one's own purposes and motives-that one must never make any decisions, form any convictions or seek any values out of context, i.e., apart from or against the total, integrated sum of one's knowledge-and, above all, that one must never seek to get away with contradictions. It means the rejection of any form of mysticism, i.e., any claim to some nonsensory, nonrational, nondefinable, supernatural source of knowledge. It means a commitment to reason, not in sporadic fits or on selected issues or in special emergencies, but as a permanent way of life.

["The Objectivist Ethics," VOS, 20; pb 25.]

Rationality is the recognition of the fact that existence exists, that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it, which is thinking-that the mind is one's only judge of values and one's only guide of action-that reason is an absolute that permits no compromise-that a concession to the irrational invalidates one's consciousness and turns it from the task of perceiving to the task of faking reality-that the alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind-that the acceptance of a mystical invention is a wish for the annihilation of existenc and, properly, annihilates one's consciousness.

[GS, FNI, 157; pb 128.]

To the extent to which a man is rational, life is the premise directing his actions. To the extent to which he is irrational, the premise directing his actions is death.

[Ibid.. 156; pb 127.]

A rational process is a moral process. You may make an error at any step of it, with nothing to protect you but your own severity, or you may try to cheat, to fake the evidence and evade the effort of the quest-but if devotion to truth is the hallmark of morality, then there is no greater, n.o.bler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who a.s.sumes the responsibility of thinking.

[Ibid., 155: pb 126.]

See also ABSOLUTES; EXISTENCE; EVASION; EVIL; FOCUS; HONESTY; INDEPENDENCE; INTEGRITY; JUSTICE; LOGIC; MORALITY; MYSTICISM; PRIDE; PRIMACY of EXISTENCE vs. PRIMACY of CONSCIOUSNESS; PRODUCTIVENESS; REASON; THOUGHT/THINKING: VIRTUE.

Rationalism vs. Empiricism. [Philosophers came to be divided] into two camps: those who claimed that man obtains his knowledge of the world by deducing it exclusively from concepts, which come from inside his head and are not derived from the perception of physical facts (the Rationalists)-and those who claimed that man obtains his knowledge from experience, which was held to mean: by direct perception of immediate facts, with no recourse to concepts (the Empiricists). To put it more simply: those who joined the [mystics] by abandoning reat.i.ty-and those who clung to reality, by abandoning their mind.

["For the New Intellectual," FNI, 31; pb 30.]

See also CONCEPTS; EPISTEMOLOGY; INDUCTION and DEDUCTION; KANT, IMMANUEL; KNOWLEDGE; LOGIC; PERCEPTION; PHILOSOPHY; REASON.