Ayn Rand: The Fountainhead

Suomessa ei tietääkseni ole kovin montaa henkilöä, joka olisi lukenut koko Ayn Randin tuotannon. Alan kohta olemaan lähellä tuota kyseenalaista meriittiä. Hulluutta, ajanhaaskausta vai jotain hyödyllistä? Kaikkea noista. Viime vuonna tuli luettua Atlas Shrugged, The Virtue of Selfishness, Capitalism - The Unknown Ideal ja For The New Intellectual. Nyt luettuna on The Fountainhead ja Philosophy - Who Needs it?. Seuraava Rand (Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology tai Anthem)saa nyt kuitenkin hetken odottaa vuoroaan.

 

Alkuinnostukseni heräsi pari vuotta sitten Randin filosofiaa kohtaan. Kerrankin löytyi kirjailija ja ajattelija, joka puolusti minua kiinnostavia arvoja ja asioita. Randilla on poikkeuksellinen kyky pukea sanoiksi ikuinen yksilön ja vapauden puolustaminen. Filosofisesti Rand on laadukasta luettavaa. Samoin yhteiskunnalliselta ajattelultaan Rand on terävää tekstiä. Tieteellisesti Randin lukeminen oli selkeä harharetki. Lähdin hakemaan Randilta ajatuksia väitöskirjani viitekehykseen, mutta siltä osin en ole saanut mitään. Rand ei ole akateemisesti noteerattava lähde ja teokset eivät ole missään määrin tieteellisiä, joten väitöskirjani kannalta hurahtaminen Randin kirjoihin oli puhtaasti ajanhaaskausta. Viihdearvoltaan Rand on vähintäänkin keskikastia. Kaunokirjallisina tuotoksina pääteokset Atlas Shrugged ja The Fountainhead ovat pääosin viihdyttävää luettavaa, mutta tarinaltaan turhan pitkiä. Sitaattiaineistoa saa paljon, ja sitä löytyykin kiitettävästi internetistä, esim täältä. Siispä kirjojen lukemisen sijasta Randin ajatuksiin kannattaa mielummin tutustua verkossa, ainakin aluksi. Näin säästyy merkittävästi aikaa muulle.

Ayn Rand: The Fountainhead

The Fountainhead

The Fountainhead on Randin toinen kuuluisa teos Atlas Shruggedin ohella. Osa pitää The Fountainheadia jopa ykkösteoksena, mutta minä asemoin sen kaunokirjallisten teosten kakkoseksi. Kyseessä on älyttömän iso kirja, 727 sivua, joten ihan hetken mielijohteesta tätä eeposta ei lueta. Kannattaa ylipäätään miettiä kaksi kertaa, haluaako tätä teosta lähteä lukemaan. Tarina on mielestäni liian pitkä, ja monilta osin jopa pitkästyttävä. Kuten sitaattipoiminnoistanikin huomaa, ensimmäiset 150 sivua on mukaansatempaavaa, mutta sen jälkeen tulee noin 450 sivun synkkä jakso, josta ei löydy juurikaan mielenkiintoisia asioita, ja siten teos meinaa viedä lukijansa epätoivoon. Meinasin itsekin lopettaa monta kertaa kesken. Lopun 150 sivua sitten onkin taas varsin tiukkaa tykitystä.

The Fountainheadin tarina on selostettu varsin hyvin muiden toimesta, joten en lähde sitä tässä enää selittämään. Kannattaa lukea se vaikka täältä. Kirjan sisältö selittyy parhaiten sen henkilöiden kautta. Ne löytyy hyvin kuvattuna myös täältä. Päähenkilö Howard Roark on periaatteen mies, jästipääksikin häntä voisi hyvin kutsua. Elää omien standardiensa mukaan, ei anna tippaakaan periksi, tiedostaa aina olevansa oman maailmakuvansa mukaisesti oikeassa. Kärsii koko elämänsä jääräpäisyytensä myötä menettämistä mahdollisuuksista, mutta ei silti luovu periaatteistaan. Kunnioitettavavaa sinänsä, mutta myös raskasta. Kirjaa lukiessa sitä usein miettii, pitääkö sitä ihmisen olla noin periaatteellinen ja kumpi onkaan tärkeämpää, olla omasta mielestään oikeassa vai olla onnellinen, jos näiden välillä on ristiriitaa. Koko kirjan ajan sitä miettii, miksi asioiden pitää mennä näin. Epäoikeudenmukaisuuden esille tuomalla, Roarkin rooliin samaistuminen on jopa ahdistava lukukokemus.

Kirjan suurin opetus on, että itsekkyys ei ole pahasta vaan nimenomaan päinvastainen eli itsettömyys. Itsetön on ihminen, joka ei ole sinut itsensä kanssa eikä kunnioita itseään vaan elää elämäänsä muille. Tämän epäkohdan The Fountainhead avaa monien arkipäiväisten hahmojen myötä. Liian moni hahmo toi mieleen vastineet oikeasta elämästä. Howard Roarkit sen sijaan ovat harvassa. Kuten myös John Galtit. Vai, kuka on John Galt? Kuten Atlas Shrugged, niin myös The Fountainhead huipentuu oikeussalissa pidettävään puheeseen. Puhe löytyy tämän tekstin lopusta. Lue vaikka se, sen sijaan The Fountainheadin lukemisen sijasta suosittelen muuta parempaa ajankäyttöä.

Poiminnot

"Rules? Here are my rules: what can be done with one substance must never be done with another. No two materials are alike. No two sites on earth are alike. Not two buildings have the same purpose. The purpose, the site, the material determine the shape. Nothing can be reasonable or beautiful unless it's made by one central idea, and the idea sets every detail. A building is alive, like a man. Its integrity is to follow its own truth, its one single theme, and to serve its own single purpose. A man doen't borrow pieces of his body. A building doesn't borrow hunks of its soul. Its maker gives it the soul and every wall, window and stairway to express it." - Howard Roark (12)

"Every form has its own meaning. Every man creates his meaning and form and goal." - Howard Roark (12)

"I set my own standards. I inherit nothing. I stand at the end of no tradition. I may, perhaps, stand at the beginning of one" - Howard Roark (13)

"I take the only desire one can really permit oneself. Freedom, Alvah, freedom."
"You call that freedom?"
"To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing." - Howard Roark (141)

"The ability to say Yes or No is the essence of all ownership. It's your ownership of your own ego. Your soul, if you wish. Your soul has a single basic function - the act of valuing. Yes or No, "I wish" or "I do not wish". You can't say Yes without saying I. There's no affirmation without the onw who affirms. In this sense, everything to which you grant your love is yours." - Howard Roark (564)

"Before you can do things for people, you must be the kind of man who can get things done. But to get things done, you must love the doing, not the secondary consequences. The work, not the people. Your own action, not any possible object of your charity." - Howard Roark (604)

"A private, personal, selfish, egotistical motivation. That's the only way I function. That's all I am." Howard Roark (606)

"I don't make comparisons. I never think of myself in relation to anyone else. I just refuse to measure myself as part of anything. I'm an utter egotist." - Howard Roark (608)

"Egotistical? An egotist would have loved it. You use words in the strangest way". - Wynand
"In the exact way. I don't wish to be the symbol of anything. I'm only myself". - Howard Roark (631)

“Yes! And isn't that the root of every despicable action? Not selfishness, but precisely the absence of a self. Look at them. The man who cheats and lies, but preserves a respectable front. He knows himself to be dishonest, but others think he's honest and he derives his self-respect from that, second-hand. The man who takes credit for an achievement which is not his own. He knows himself to be mediocre, but he's great in the eyes of others. The frustrated wretch who professes love for the inferior and clings to those less endowed, in order to establish his own superiority by comparison. The man whose sole aim is to make money. Now I don't see anything evil in a desire to make money. But money is only a means to some end. If a man wants it for a personal purpose--to invest in his industry, to create, to study, to travel, to enjoy luxury--he's completely moral. But the men who place money first go much beyond that. Personal luxury is a limited endeavor. What they want is ostentation: to show, to stun, to entertain, to impress others. They're second-handers. Look at our so-called cultural endeavors. A lecturer who spouts some borrowed rehash of nothing at all that means nothing at all to him--and the people who listen and don't give a damn, but sit there in order to tell their friends that they have attended a lecture by a famous name. All second-handers.” - Howard Roark (633)

"A truly selfish man cannot be affected by the approval of others. He doesn't need it. ... Your ego is your strictest judge. They run from it. They spend their lives running. It's easier to donate a few thousands to charity and think oneself noble than to base self-respect on personal standards of personal achievement. It's simple to seek substitutes for competence - such easy substitutes: love, charm, kindness, charity. But there is no substitute for competence. That, precisely, is the deadliness of second-handlers. They have no concern for facts, ideas, work. They're concerned only with people. They don't ask: Is this true? They ask: Is this what others think is true? Not to judge, but to repeat. Not to do, but to give the impression of doing. Not creation, but show. Not ability, bud friendship. Not merit, but pull. What would happen to the world without those who do, think, work, produce? Those are all the egotists. You don't think through another's brain and you don't work through another's hands. When you suspend your faculty of independent judgment, you suspend consciousness. To stop consciousness is to stop life." - Howard Roark (634)

"Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest moments are personal, self-motivated, not to be touched. The things which are sacred or precious to us are the things we withdraw from promiscuous sharing." - Howard Roark (635)

"I think the only cardinal evil on earth is that of placing your prime concern within other men. I've always demanded a certain quality in the people I liked. I've always recognized it at once - and it's the only quality I respect in men. I chose my friends by that. Now I know what it is. A self-sufficient ego. Nothing else matters." - Howard Roark (636)

"If one doesn't respect oneself one can have neither love nor respect from others." - Howard Roark (636)

"The worst second-handler of all - the man who goes after power". - Howard Roark (636)

Howard Roarkin puhe oikeudessa

“Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light. He was considered an evildoer who had dealt with a demon mankind dreaded. But thereafter men had fire to keep them warm, to cook their food, to light their caves. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had lifted dardness off the earth. Centuries later, the first man invented the wheel. He was probably torn on the rack he had taught his brothers to build. He was considered a transgressor who ventured into forbidden terrritory. But thereafter, men could travel past any horizon. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had opened the roads of the world.

“That man, the unsubmissive and first, stands in the opening chapter of every legend mankind has recorded about its beginning. Prometheus was chained to a rock and torn by vultures—because he had stolen the fire of the gods. Adam was condemned to suffer—because he had eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Whatever the legend, somewhere in the shadows of its memory mankind knew that its glory began with one and that that one paid for his courage.

“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received—hatred. The great creators—the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors—stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The airplane was considered impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anesthesia was considered sinful. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.

“No creator was prompted by a desire to serve his brothers, for his brothers rejected the gift he offered and that gift destroyed the slothful routine of their lives. His truth was his only motive. His own truth, and his own work to achieve it in his own way. A symphony, a book, an engine, a philosophy, an airplane or a building—that was his goal and his life. Not those who heard, read, operated, believed, flew or inhabited the thing he had created. The creation, not its users. The creation, not the benefits others derived from it. The creation which gave form to his truth. He held his truth above all things and against all men.

“His vision, his strength, his courage came from his own spirit. A man's spirit, however, is his self. That entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego.

“The creators were not selfless. It is the whole secret of their power—that it was self-sufficient, self-motivated, self-generated. A first cause, a fount of energy, a life force, a Prime Mover. The creator served nothing and no one. He lived for himself.

“And only by living for himself was he able to achieve the things which are the glory of mankind. Such is the nature of achievement.

“Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. Man has no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons, and to make weapons—a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from a single attribute of man—the function of his reasoning mind.

“But the mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain. There is no such thing as a collective thought. An agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise or an average drawn upon many individual thoughts. It is a secondary consequence. The primary act—the process of reason—must be performed by each man alone. We can divide a meal among many men. We cannot digest it in a collective stomach. No man can use his lungs to breathe for another man. No man can use his brain to think for another. All the functions of body and spirit are private. They cannot be shared or transferred.

“We inherit the products of the thought of other men. We inherit the wheel. We make a cart. The cart becomes an automobile. The automobile becomes an airplane. But all through the process what we receive from others is only the end product of their thinking. The moving force is the creative faculty which takes this product as material, uses it and originates the next step. This creative faculty cannot be given or received, shared or borrowed. It belongs to single, individual men. That which it creates is the property of the creator. Men learn from one another. But all learning is only the exchange of material. No man can give another the capacity to think. Yet that capacity is our only means of survival.

"Nothing is given to man on earth. Everything he needs has to be produced. And here man faces his basic alternative: he can survive in only one of two ways—by the independent work of his own mind or as a parasite fed by the minds of others. The creator originates. The parasite borrows. The creator faces nature alone. The parasite faces nature through an intermediary.

“The creator’s concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite’s concern is the conquest of men.

"The creator lives for his work. He needs no other men. His primary goal is within himself. The parasite lives second-hand. He needs others. Others become his prime motive.

“The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive. To a creator, all relations with men are secondary.

“The basic need of the second-hander is to secure his ties with men in order to be fed. He places relations first. He declares that man exists in order to serve others. He preaches altruism.

“Altruism is the doctrine which demands that man live for others and place others above self.

“No man can live for another. He cannot share his spirit just as he cannot share his body. But the second-hander has used altruism as a weapon of expoloitation and reversed the base of mankind’s moral principles. Men have been taught every precept that destroys the creator. Men have been taught dependence as a virtue.

“The man who attemps to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves. The relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption. It is impossible in concept. The nearest approach to it in reality—the man who lives to serve others—is the slave. If physical slavery is repulsive, how much more repulsive is the concept of servility of the spirit? The conquered slave has a vestige of honor. He has the merit of having resisted and of considering his condition evil. But the man who enslaves himself voluntarily in the name of love is the basest of creatures. He degrades the dignity of man and he degrades the conception of love. But this is the essence of altruism.

“Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but to give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before distribution—or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement.

“Men have been taught that their first concern is to relieve the sufferings of others. But suffering is a disease. Should one come upon it, one tries to give relief and assistance. To make that the highest test of virtue is to make suffering the most important part of life. Then man must wish to see others suffer—in order that he may be virtuous. Such is the nature of altruism. The creator is not concerned with disease, but with life. Yet the work of the creators has eliminated one form of disease after another, in man’s body and spirit, and brought more relief from suffering than any altruist could ever conceive.

“Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.

“Men have been taught that the ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the ideal of virtue. But the creator is the egotist in the absolute sense, and the selfless man is the one who does not think, feel, judge or act. These are functions of the self.

“Here the basic reversal is most deadly. The issue has been perverted and man has been left no alternative—and no freedom. As poles of good and evil, he was offered two conceptions: egotism and altruism. Egotism was held to mean the sacrifice of others to self. Altruism—the sacrifice of self to others. This tied man irrevocably to other men and left him nothing but a choice of pain: his own pain borne for the sake of others or pain inflicted upon others for the sake of self. When it was added that man must find joy in self-immolation, the trap was closed. Man was forced to accept masochism as his ideal—under the threat that sadism was his only alternative. This was the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on mankind.

“This was the device by which dependence and suffering were perpetuated as fundamentals of life.

“The choice is not self-sacrifice or domination. The choice is independence or dependence. The code of the creator or the code of the second-hander. This is the basic issue. It rests upon the alternative of life or death. The code of the creator is built on the needs of the reasoning mind which allows man to survive. The code of the second-hander is built on the needs of a mind incapable of survival. All that which proceeds from man’s independent ego is good. All that which proceeds from man’s dependence upon men is evil.

“The egotist is the absolute sense is not the man who sacrifices others. He is the man who stands above the need of using others in any manner. He does not function through them. He is not concerned with them in any primary matter. Not in his aim, not in his motive, not in his thinking, not in his desires, not in the source of his energy. He does not exist for any other man—and he asks no other man to exist for him. This is the only form of brotherhood and mutual respect possible between men.

“Degrees of ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man’s independence, initiative and personal love for his work determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man. Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn’t done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence.

“In all proper relationships there is no sacrifice of anyone to anyone. An architect needs clients, but he does not subordinate his work to their wishes. They need him, but they do not order a house just to give him a commission. Men exchange their work by free, mutual consent to mutual advantage when their personal interests agree and they both desire the exchange. If they do not desire it, they are not forced to deal with each other. They seek further. This is the only possible form of relationship between equals. Anything else is a relation of slave to master, or victim to executioner.

“No work is ever done collectively, by a majority decision. Every creative job is achieved under the guidance of a single individual thought. An architect requires a great many men to erect his building. But he does not ask them to vote on his design. They work together by free agreement and each is free in his proper function. An architect uses steel, glass, concrete, produced by others. But the materials remain just so much steel, glass and concrete until he touches them. What he does with them is his individual product and his individual property. This is the only pattern for proper co-operation among men.

“The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man’s first duty is to himself. His moral law is never to place his prime goal within the persons of others. His moral obligation is to do what he wishes, provided his wish does not depend primarily upon other men. This includes the whole sphere of his creative faculty, his thinking, his work. But it does not include the sphere of the gangster, the altruist and the dictator.

“A man thinks and works alone. A man cannot rob, exploit or rule—alone. Robbery, exploitation and ruling presuppose victims. They imply dependence. They are the province of the second-hander.

“Rulers of men are not egotists. They create nothing. They exist entirely through the persons of others. Their goal is in their subjects, in the activity of enslaving. They are as dependent as the beggar, the social worker and the bandit. The form of dependence does not matter.

“But men were taught to regard second-handers—tyrants, emperors, dictators—as exponents of egotism. By this fraud they were made to destroy the ego, themselves and others. The purpose of the fraud was to destroy the creators. Or to harness them. Which is a synonym.

“From the beginning of history, the two antagonists have stood face to face: the creator and the second-hander. When the first creator invented the wheel, the first second-hander responded. He invented altruism.

“The creator—denied, opposed, persecuted, exploited—went on, moved forward and carried all humanity along on his energy. The second-hander contributed nothing to the process except the impediments. The contest has another name: the individual against the collective.

“The ‘common good’ of a collective—a race, a class, a state—was the claim and justification of every tyranny ever established over men. Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness ever equaled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism? Does the fault lie in men’s hypocrisy or in the nature of the principle? The most dreadful butchers were the most sincere. They believed in the perfect society reached through the guillotine and the firing squad. Nobody questioned their right to murder since they were murdering for an altruistic purpose. It was accepted that man must be sacrificed for other men. Actors change, but the course of the tragedy remains the same. A humanitarian who starts with declarations of love for mankind and ends with a sea of blood. It goes on and will go on so long as men believe that an action is good if it is unselfish. That permits the altruist to act and forces his victims to bear it. The leaders of collectivist movements ask nothing for themselves. But observe the results.

“The only good which men can do to one another and the only statement of their proper relationship is—Hands off!

“Now observe the results of a society built on the principle of individualism. This, our country. The noblest country in the history of men. The country of greatest achievement, greatest prosperity, greatest freedom. This country was not based on selfless service, sacrifice, renunciation or any precept of altruism. It was based on a man’s right to the pursuit of happiness. His own happiness. Not anyone else’s. A private, personal, selfish motive. Look at the results. Look into your own conscience.

“It is an ancient conflict. Men have come close to the truth, but it was destroyed each time and one civilization fell after another. Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.

“Now, in our age, collectivism, the rule of the second-hander and second-rater, the ancient monster, has broken loose and is running amuck. It has brought men to a level of intellectual indecency never equaled on earth. It has reached a scale of horror without precedent. It has poisoned every mind. It has swallowed most of Europe. It is engulfing our country.

“I am an architect. I know what is to come by the principle on which it is built. We are approaching a world in which I cannot permit myself to live.

“Now you know why I dynamited Cortlandt.

“I designed Cortlandt. I gave it to you. I destroyed it.

“I destroyed it because I did not choose to let it exist. It was a double monster. In form and in implication. I had to blast both. The form was mutilated by two second-handers who assumed the right to improve upon that which they had not made and could not equal. They were permitted to do it by the general implication that the altruistic purpose of the building superseded all rights and that I had no claim to stand against it.

“I agreed to design Cortlandt for the purpose of seeing it erected as I dedigned it and for no other reason. That was the price I set for my work. I was not paid.

“I do not blame Peter Keating. He was helpless. He had a contract with his employers. It was ignored. He had a promise that the structure he offered would be built as designed. The promise was broken. The love of a man for the integrity of his work and his right to preserve it are now considered a vague intangible and an inessential. You have heard the prosecutor say that. Why was the building disfigured? For no reason. Such acts never have any reason, unless it’s the vanity of some second-handers who feel they have a right to anyone’s property, spiritual or material. Who permitted them to do it? No particular man among the dozens in authority. No one cared to permit it or to stop it. No one was responsible. No one can be held to account. Such is the nature of all collective action.

“I did not receive the payment I asked. But the owners of Cortlandt got what they needed from me. They wanted a scheme devised to build a structure as cheaply as possible. They found no one else who could do it to their satisfaction. I could and did. They took the benefit of my work and made me contribute it as a gift. But I am not an altruist. I do not contribute gifts of this nature.

“It is said that I have destroyed the home of the destitute. It is forgotten that but for me the destitute could not have had this particular home. Those who were concerned with the poor had to come to me, who have never been concerned, in order to help the poor. It is believed that the poverty of the future tenants gave them the right to my work. That their need constituted a claim on my life. That it was my duty to contribute anything demanded of me. This is the second-hander’s credo now swallowing the world.

"I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone’s right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need.

“I wished to come here and say that I am a man who does not exist for others.

“It had to be said. The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing.

“I wished to come here and say that the integrity of a man’s creative work is of greater importance than any charitable endeavor. Those of you who do not understand this are the men who’re destroying the world.

“I wished to come here and state my terms. I do not care to exist on any others.

“I recognize no obligations toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no part in a slave society. To my country, I wish to give the ten years which I will spend in jail if my country exists no longer. I will spend them in memory and in gratitude for what my country has been. It will be my act of loyalty, my refusal to live or work in what has taken its place.

“My act of loyalty to every creator who ever lived and was made to suffer by the force responsible for the Cortlandt I dynamited. To every tortured hour of loneliness, denial, frustration, abuse he was made to spend—and to the battles he won. To every creator whose name is known—and to every creator who lived, struggled and perished unrecognized before he could achieve. To every creator who was destroyed in body or in spirit. To Henry Cameron. To Steven Mallory. To a man who doesn’t want to be named, but who is sitting in this courtroom and knows that I am speaking of him.”

Ayn Rand: The Virtue of Selfishness

Jatketaan vielä Ayn Randin tuotannolla. Tällä kertaa on vuorossa The Virtue of Selfishness, joka on ehkä selkein paketti Randin filosofiasta ja ajattelusta. Siinä missä Randin Atlas Shrugged on fiktiivinen ja pitkä tarinamuotoinen mestariteos, The Virtue of Selfisness koostuu lyhyistä ja suoraan aihealueeseen iskevistä tekstipätkistä. Tyyliltään se on samanlainen kuin Capitalism - The Unknown Ideal, joka paneutuu puolustamaan kapitalmismia yhteiskunta- ja talousjärjestelmänä, tässä teoksessa sen sijaan keskitytään puolustamaan yksilöä kaiken toiminnan keskiössä.

Ayn Rand: The Virtue of Selfishness

Varoitus: herättää varmasti vastustusta!

 

The Virtue of Selfishness on Radin teoksista kaikkein eniten vastustusta herättävä. Se on niin tiukka yksilökeskeisyyden ylistyspuheenvuoro, että kaikki "itsekkyys on pahasta" ajattelijat saavat siitä bensaa liekkeihinsä. Se tarjoaa ravisuttelevan vastakohdan yleisesti vallitsevalle ajattelulle ja siksi se nostaa taatusti karvat pystyyn. Itsellenikin se oli lukukokemuksena melko mykistävä. Kuitenkin Randia ei pitäisi tuomita ilman tarkempaa tarkastelua, sillä Rand on ajattelussaan looginen, järjestelmällinen ja perusteellinen. On syytä tarkistaa omat lähtöolettamat (check your premises), jos aikoo Randin näkemykset vääriksi osoittaa. Ihan helpolla se ei onnistu. Ehkä lopulta joutuu vain toteamaan, että maailmankuvat ovat erilaiset.

 

Arvot, ajattelu ja tuottava työ

 

Randin teos kulminoituu yksilön arvovalintojen arvostamiselle. Tämä on kaiken toiminnan lähtökohta. Yksilöllä on tavoitteita ja tahtotiloja, jotka hän haluaa saavuttaa. Toiseksi Rand kunnioittaa suuresti kykyä ajatella. Tämä kyky erottaa ihmiset ympäristöönsä reagoivista eläimistä ja mahdollistaa kehityksen. Kolmanneksi Rand nostaa arvoon tuottavan työn. Siinä ajatukset siirretään käytäntöön ja luodaan omin käsin hyvinvointia. Arvot, ajattelu ja tuottava työntekeminen, aika hyvät peruskivet elämänfilosofiaan.

 

Rand tuomitsee rasismin

 

Rand varaa kirjassaan kokonaisen kappaleen rasismille. Hän tuomitsee rasismin ja rasistisen ajattelun kiitettävällä tavalla. En tiedä mihin viitekehykseen kokoomusnuorten puheenjohtaja Susanna Koski yksilökeskeisen ajattelunsa perustaa,  mutta ehkä hänen olisi kannattanut lukea Randia hieman tarkemmin ja ymmärtää yksilökeskeisyyden lähtökohta hieman syvällisemmin ennen kuin lähti julkiseen keskusteluun aihealueesta. Hänen argumenttinsa kun eivät pysyneet kasassa, yksilön oikeudet ja rasisimi sekoittuivat, ja koko keskustelu kääntyi itseään vastaan. Randin mukaan rasismi on kollektiivisen mielen ilmentymä. Pienin yksikkö maailmassa on yksilö, joten jokainen yksilöä arvostava arvostaa myös kaikkia vähemmistöjä.

 

Klassikko

 

The Virtue of Selfishness on kirjana sen verran radikaali, että aivan vasta-alkajan käsissä siitä voi helposti vetää vääriä tulkintoja. Toisaalta se on suoraviivaisin tapa tutustua Randiin, mutta syvällisemmin se aukeaa, jos on ensin lukenut muita tuotoksia. Lukemisen arvoinen ilman muuta ja jokainen sivu tarjoaa takuuvarmaa sitaattimateriaalia. Klassikko, joka kannattaisi suomentaa.

Poiminnot

• The exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word “selfishness” is: concern with one’s own interests.
• The first step is to assert man’s right to a moral existence – that is: to recognize his need of a moral code to guide the course and the fulfillment of his own life.
• “Value” is that which one acts to gain and/or keep. The concept “value” is not a primary; it presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? It presupposes an entity capable of achieve a goal in the face of an alternative. Where no alternative exists, no goals and no values are possible. (16)
• … It is only the concept of Life that makes the concept of Value possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil. Only a living entity can have goals or can originate them. (16)
• An ultimate value is that final goal or end to which all lesser goals are the means – and it sets the standard by which all lesser goals are evaluated. An organism’s life is its standard of value; that which furthers its life is the good, that which threatens it is the evil. (17)
• Consciousness is the basic means of survival. (19)
• Reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses. It is a faculty that man has to exercise by choice. …Thinking requires a state of full focused awareness. (22)
• Psychologically, the choice “to think or not” is the choice “to focus or not”. Existentially, the choice “to focus or not” is the choice “to be conscious or not”. Metaphysically the choice “to be conscious or not” it the choice of life or death. (22)
• Ethics is not a mystic fantasy – nor a social convention – nor a dispensable, subjective luxury, to be switched or discarded in any emergency. Ethics is an objective, metaphysical necessity of man’s survival – not by the grace of the supernatural nor or your neighbors nor of your whims, but by the grace of reality and the nature of life. (24)
• Since everything man needs has to be discovered by his own mind and produced by his own effort, the two essentials of the method of survival proper to a rational being are: thinking and productive work. (25)
• The Objectivist ethics holds man’s life as the standard of value – and his own life as the ethical purpose of every individual man. (27)
• Value is that which one acts to gain/or keep. Virtue is the act by which one gains and/or keeps it. 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 determinates the hierarchy of all his other values. Reason is the source, the precondition of his productive work – pride is the result. (27)
• Productive work is the road of man’s unlimited achievement and calls upon the highest attributes of his character: his creative ability, his ambitiousness, his self-assertiveness, his refusal to bear uncontested disasters, his dedication to the goal of reshaping the earth in the image of his values. (29)
• The basic social principle of the Objectivist ethics is that just as life is an end in itself, so every living human being is an end in himself, not the means to the ends or the welfare of others – and, therefore, that man must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. To live for his own sake means that the achievement of his own happiness is man’s highest moral purpose. (30)
• Happiness is the successful state of life. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values. (30)
• Happiness can properly be the purpose of ethics, but not the standard. The task of ethics is to define man’s proper code of values and thus to give him the means of achieving happiness. (33)
• The principle of trade is the only rational ethical principle for all human relationships, personal and social, private and public, spiritual and material. It is the principle of justice. A trader is a man who earns what he gets and does not give or take the undeserved. (34)
• To love is to value. Only a rationally selfish man, a man of self-esteem, is capable of love – because he is the only man capable of holding firm, consistent, uncompromising, unbetrayed values. The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone. (35)
• It is only on the basis of rational selfishness – on the basis of justice – that men can be fit to live together in a free, peaceful, prosperous, benevolent, rational society. (35)
• The only proper, moral purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence – to protect him from physical violence – to protect his right to his own life, to his own liberty, to his own property and to the pursuit of his own happiness. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. (36)
• When I say “capitalism”, I mean a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism – with a separation of state and economics, in the same way for the same reasons as the separation of state and church. A pure system of capitalism has never yet existed, not even in America: various degrees of government control had been undercutting and distorting it from the start. Capitalism is not the system of the past; it is the system of the future – if mankind is to have future. (37)
• The proper function of consciousness is: perception, cognition, and the control of action. (40)
• Faith is the commitment of one’s consciousness to beliefs for which one has no sensory evidence or rational proof…. Faith is the equation of feeling with knowledge. (41)
• Pride is one’s response to one’s power to achieve values, the pleasure one takes in one’s own efficacy. … Pride has to be earned. (45)
• The root of selfishness is man’s right – and need – to act on his own judgment. (46)
• Always act in accordance with the hierarchy of your values, and never sacrifice a greater value to a lesser one. (50)
• Love and friendship are profoundly personal, selfish values: love is an expression and assertion of self-esteem, a response to one’s own values in the person of another. One gains a profoundly personal, selfish joy from the mere existence of the person one loves. It is one’s own personal, selfish happiness that one seeks, earns and derives from love. (51)
• Any action that man undertakes for the benefit of those he loves is not a sacrifice if, in the hierarchy of his values, in the total context of the choices open to him, it achieves that which is of greatest personal (and rational) importance to him. (51)
• It is only in emergency situations that one should volunteer to help strangers, if it is in one’s power. …One should help men in an emergency. (55)
• One’s sole obligation toward others, in this respect, is to maintain a social system that leaves men free to achieve, to gain and to keep their values. (55)
• There are no conflict of interests among rational men. And there are four reasons to that: Reality, Context, Responsibility and Effort. (57)
• Like any other value, love is not a static quantity to be divided, but an unlimited response to be earned. (63)
• There are, broadly, five (interconnected) areas that allow man to experience the enjoyment of life: productive work, human relationships, recreation, art, sex. – Nathaniel Branden.(72)
• Of the various pleasures that man can offer himself, the greatest is pride – the pleasure he takes in his own achievements and in the creation of his own character. The pleasure he takes in the character and achievements of another human being is that of admiration. The highest expression of the most intense union of these two responses – pride and admiration – is romantic love. Its celebration is sex. – Nathaniel Branden. (76)
• A man falls in love with and sexually desires the person who reflects his own deepest values. – Nathaniel Branden. (77)
• There can be no compromise on moral principles. (81)
• One must never fail to pronounce moral judgment. Nothing can corrupt and disintegrate a culture or a man’s character as thoroughly as does the precept of moral agnosticism, the idea that one must never pass moral judgment on others, that one must be morally tolerant of anything, that the good consists of never distinguishing good from evil. (82)
• There is no escape from the fact that men have to make choices; so long as men have to make choices, there is no escape from moral values; so long as moral values are at stake, no moral neutrality is possible. To abstain from condemning a torturer, is to become an accessory to the torture and murder of his victims. (83)
• Judge, and be prepared to be judged. (83)
• “Surely you don’t think in terms of black-and-white, do you?” – The proper answer (in essence, if not in form) should be: “You’re damn right I do!” (92)
• What will happen to the poor in an Objectivist society? If you want to help them, you will not be stopped. Only individual men have the right to decide then or whether they wish to help others; society – as an organized political system – has no rights in the matter at all. (93)
• The man who is willing to serve as the means to ends of others, will necessarily regard others as the means to his ends. (94)
• Progress can come only out of men’s surplus, that is: from the work of those men whose ability produces more than their personal consumption requires, those who are intellectually and financially able to venture out in pursuit of the new. Capitalism is the only system where such men are free to function and where progress is accompanied, not by forced privations, but by a constant rise in the general level of prosperity, of consumption and of enjoyment of life. (97)
• All public projects are mausoleums, not always in shape, but always in cost. (98)
• America’s greatness lies in the fact that her actual monuments are not public. The skyline of New York is a monument of a splendor that no pyramids or palaces will ever equal or approach. But America’s skyscrapers were not built by public funds nor for a public purpose; they were built by the energy, iniative and wealth of private individuals for personal profit. (105)
• There is no such dichotomy as “human rights” versus “property rights”. No human rights can exist without property rights. Since material goods are produced by the mind and effort of individual men, and are needed to sustain their lives, if the producer does not own the result of his effort, he does not own his life. To deny property rights means to turn men into property owned by the state. Whoever claims the “right” to “redistribute” the wealth produced by others is claiming the “right” to treat human beings as chattel. (106)
• If one wishes to advocate a free society – that is, capitalism – one must realize that its indispensable foundation is the principle of individual rights. (108)
• The right to property is a right to action, like all others: it is not the right to an object, but to the action and the consequences of producing or earning that object. It is not a guarantee that a man will earn any property, but only a guarantee that he will own it if he earns it. It is the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values. (111)
• There are two potential violators of man’s rights: the criminals and the government. (111)
• The Founding Fathers spoke of the right to the pursuit of happiness – not of the right to happiness. It means that a man has a right to take actions he deems necessary to achieve his happiness; it does not mean that others must make him happy. (114)
• Rights are moral principles which define and protect a man’s freedom of action, but impose no obligations on other men. (115)
• Those who advocate laissez-faire capitalism are the only advocates of man’s rights. (117)
• The government is not the ruler, but the servant or agent of the citizens; it means that the government as such has no rights except the rights delegated to it by the citizens for a specific purpose. (129)
• The proper functions of a government fall into three broad categories: all of them involving the issues of physical force and the protection of men’s rights: the police, to protect men from criminals – the armed services, to protect men from foreign invaders – the law courts, to settle disputes among men according to objective laws. (131)
• In a fully free society, taxation – or, to be exact, payment for governmental services would be voluntary. The citizens would (and should) be willing to pay for such services, as they pay for insurance. (135)
• For every species, growth is a necessity of survival. Biologically, inactivity is death. (141)
• Capitalism, by its nature, entails a constant process of motion, growth and progress. It creates the optimum social conditions for man to respond to the challenges of nature in such a way as best to further his life. It operates to the benefit of all those who choose to be active in the productive process, whatever their level of ability. But it is not geared to the demands of stagnation. Neither is reality. (146)
• 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 lineage – 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. (147)
• Just as there is no such thing as a collective or racial mind, so there is no such thing as a collective or racial achievement. There are only individual minds and individual achievements – and a culture is not the anonymous product of undifferentiated masses, but the sum of the intellectual achievements of individual men. (148)
• Racism has only one psychological root: the racist’s sense of his own interiority. Like every other form of collectivism, racism is a quest from the unearned. It is a quest for automatic knowledge – for an automatic evaluation of men’s characters that bypasses the responsibility of exercising rational or moral judgment – and, above all, a quest for an automatic self-esteem (or pseudo-self-esteem). The overwhelming majority of racists are men who have earned no sense of personal identity, who can claim no individual achievement or distinction, and who seek the illusion of a “tribal self-esteem”. (149)
• There is only one antidote to racism: the philosophy of individualism and its politico-economic corollary, laissez-faire capitalism. …It is not a man’s ancestors or relatives or genes or body chemistry that count in a free market, but only one human attribute: productive ability. It is by his own individual ability and ambition that capitalism judges a man and rewards him accordingly. No political system can establish universal rationality by law (or by force). But capitalism is the only system that functions in a way which rewards rationality and penalizes all forms of irrationality, including racism. …It is capitalism that gave mankind its first steps toward freedom and a rational way of life. It is capitalism that broke through national and racial barriers, by means of free trade. It is capitalism that abolished serfdom and slavery in all the civilized countries of the world. (151)
• The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights, cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. (154)

I am John Galt

Sainpas hyvällä tekosyyllä blogiini hienon otsikon. Nimittäin lukemalla Donald L. Luskin ja Andrew Gretan teoksen I am John Galt - Today's Heroic Innovators Building the World and the Villainous Parasites Destroying It.

 

Luskin & Greta: I am John Galt

Valitettavasti kirja ei vain ollut lukemisen arvoinen. Se oli oikeastaan surkea. Sen yksinkertainen perusajatus oli tuoda Ayn Randin mestariteoksen Atlas Shruggedin ihmiset nykyaikaan hakemalla hahmoille vastineita reaalielämästä. Ayn Randin hahmot Atlas Shruggedissa ovat erinomaisen todentuntuisia ja niille löytyy vastineita arkipäivän elämästä useita, mutta kirjan kirjoittamiseen tämä vertailuajattelu ei vain kanna. Vielä ontuvamman vertailusta tekee se, että itse hahmojen luojalla eli edesmenneellä Ayn Randilla ei tietenkään ole ollut osaa eikä arpaa näiden vastinparien valinnassa.

 

Kolmen henkilön osalta kirjoittajiin on helppo yhtyä: Paul Krugman Ellsworth Tooheyna eli sosialistina, Bill Gates Henry Reardenina eli toimialaansa muuttavana teknologisena innovaattorina sekä Milton Friedman Hugh Akstonina eli akateemisena vapauden ja markkinatalouden puolustajana. Alan Greenspan esitellään kirjassa Robert Stadlerina eli liberalistina, josta tuli talouden tsaari. Hänet esitellään myös takinkääntäjänä, osin petturinakin, eli todetaan hänen olleen Ayn Randin lähipiiriläisiä ja ystäviä, mutta valtaan päästyään hänen talouspolitiikkansa tulkittiin osin ihanteiden vastaiseksi. Tämä tulkinta ei liene tällaisena ulkopuolisena arviona reilu Greenspania kohtaan.

 

Atlas Shrugged Suomessa?

 

Jo Atlas Shrugeddia lukiessani mietin, kuka olisi kukin Suomen yhteiskunnassa. Nimittely ei ole reilua, voisi olla jopa henkilön kunniaa loukkaavaa, joten jätän sen julkisesti tekemättä. Wesley Moucheja eli poliitikkoja, jotka kuvittelevat ymmärtävänsä taloutta sitä oikeasti ymmärtämättä ja siten sekoittavat yhteiskunnan toimintaa, löytyy lukuisia. Aivan liikaa. Ja aivan liian keskeisistä asemista. Samoin James Taggarteja löytyy eli suurten yritysten johtajia, joiden pääasiallinen tehtävä tuntuu olevan oman aseman turvaaminen ja yrityksen toiminnan suojaaminen kilpailulta lobbaamalla lainsäädäntöä. Henry Reardeneita eli periksiantamattomia yrittäjiä ja innovaattoreitakin onneksi löytyy useista suomalaisista pk-yrityksistä. Siinä on aika paljon pohjanmaalaista henkeä Henry Reardenin toiminnassa.

 

Mutta missä on Suomen Hugh Akston, akateeminen liberalismin ja vapaan markkinatalouden puolustaja? Yksi vahva kandidaatti, nyt jo eläköitynyt, taitaa löytyä Tampereelta.

 

Entä Francisco d'Anconia, renesanssi henkilö ja todellinen kapitalismin provosoiva puolustaja? Tämä kunniallinen titteli on helppo jakaa eräälle viiksimiehelle, joka ei keskustelunavauksillaan ole taatusti jättänyt ketään kylmäksi. Lienee kapitalismin ykköspuolustaja suomalaisessa yhteiskunnassa.

 

Löytyisikö Ragnar Danneskjöldiä, henkilöä joka haluaa lopettaa Robin Hoodin ihanteen maailmasta eli rikkailta ryöstämisen? Vielä ei ole kävelly Suomessa tällaista vastaan.

 

Mites Dagny Taggart, Atlas Shruggedin päähenkilö, nainen joka ei jäänyt jalkoihin miehisessä korporaatiomaailmassa vaan veti rohkeasti omaa polkuaan ja otti aina vastuuta muiden sitä väistellessä? Näitäkin onneksi löytyy, ennen kaikkea liike-elämästä. Yksi vahva nimi on myös järjestöjohtajana.

 

Myös Midas Mulligan on kiinnostava persoona. Pankkiiri, joka liittyi ensimmäisenä lakkolaisiin ja toimi keskeisenä taustavaikuttajana ja rahoittajana koko operaatiossa.

 

Mutta silti, kaiken tämän jälkeenkin, kysymys kuuluu, kuka on John Galt?

Ayn Rand: Atlas Shrugged

Who is John Galt? Saatat olla kuullut kysymyksen, mutta tiedätkö vastauksen? Tämä kysymys toistuu ensimmäiset 600 sivua Ayn Randin 1168-sivuisessa mestariteoksessa Atlas Shrugged. Maailma näyttää menevän erikoiseen suuntaan ja vastuunkantajat ovat vähissä. Tapahtuu asioita, jotka ovat ihan kuin tästä maailmasta. Konkreettisia esimerkkejä pienistä asioista, joissa ihmiset toimivat ajattelemattomuuttaan väärin ja välinpitämättömästi. Dagny Taggart tarinan päähenkilönä yrittää kaikkensa, mutta ei saa otetta siitä, mitä taustalla oikein tapahtuu. John Galt antaa vinkkejä itsestään ennen varsinaista ilmaantumistaan.

Ayn Rand: Atlas Shrugged

John Galt on lakkokenraali. Hän haluaa pysäyttää maailman moottorit agitoimalla ahkerat ja ajattelevat ihmiset lakkoon, mielen lakkoon. Mitä jos vastuunkantajat kaikkoavat maailmasta? Mitä jos he kohauttavat olkapäitään ja päättävät yksinkertaisesti poistua? Päättävät lopettaa tekemisensä, jättäävät kaiken taaksensa ja vain katoavat? Mitä jää jäljelle? Miten yhteiskunta toimii, jos kukaan ei kanna vastuuta? Mitä jos ahkerien mitta vain tulee täyteen?

 

Kapitalismin klassikko

 

Ayn Randin Atlas Shrugged on todellinen jättipaketti. Ei voi kuin ihmetellä, kuinka Rand on pystynyt pitämään kokonaisuuden tarinan koossa. Alussa asiat vaikuttavat viattomilta, mutta tarinan kehittyessä niille tulee merkitys ja ne kumuloituvat kaaokseksi. Kirja on luonteeltaan syvällistä yhteiskuntafilosofiaa. Se avaa tarinan muodossa yleisen yhteiskunnallisen ajattelumme ongelmia. Erityisesti se hyökkää altruismia ja valtiokeskeisyyttä kohtaan. Sankariksi Rand nostaa itsenäisen yksilön, joka omilla toimillaan tavoittelee omaa onnellisuuttaan.

 

Atlas Shrugged on klassikko. Erityisesti USA:ssa teoksella on oma merkittävä roolinsa ja siihen viitataan usein, sekä hyvässä että pahassa. Minä asemoin Atlas Shruggedin kolmen parhaan lukemani kirjan joukkoon. Lukukokemuksena se on suoritus, josta voi olla ylpeä. Moni sen tahtoisi lukea, mutta 1168 sivua karsii jyvät akanoista. Ilman todellista tahtoa sitä ei kannata edes aloittaa. Vähän kuin Raamattukin, vain hyvin harvat ovat sen alusta loppuun lukeneet. Atlas Shruggedia voi perustellusti tituleerata yhdeksi kapitalismin raamatuista. Hauskana anekdoottina kirjassa esiintyy kultaisella dollarimerkillä varustettuja savukkeita, jotka symboloivat kapitalismin henkeä. Jos tuollaisia olisi oikeasti tarjolla, todennäköisesti alkaisin polttamaan.

 

Atlas Shruggedin parasta antia ovat monipuoliset ja mielikuvitukselliset henkilöhahmot. John Galt itsessään on elävä legenda, mutta tarinaan mahtuu paljon muitakin. Hank Rearden, yrittäjä, innovaattori ja oman tiensä kulkija. Todellinen taistelija, yrittäjyyden perikuva. Francisco d'Anconia, mies joka yllättää kaikki toimimalla toisin kuin hänen oletettaisiin toimivan. Ragnar Danneskjöld, mies joka haluaa poistaa Robin Hood-sankaruuden maailmasta toimimalla juuri päinvastoin kuin Hood. Päähenkilönä tarinassa kuitenkin on Dagny Taggart, nainen joka ei pääse perheyrityksenä johtoon, vaikka kaiken vastuun kantaakin. Pahiksia tarinaan mahtuu myös useita. Moni näistä veljeilee valtion kanssa pyrkien politikoimalla pönkittämään omaa valta-asemaansa. Havahduttavinta näissä kaikissa henkilöissä on se, että jokaiselle löytyy helposti vastinpari elävästä elämästä.

 

Atlas Shruggedin opetus

 

Atlas Shruggedissa John Galt kumppaneineen kutsuu valitsemiaan henkilöitä "mielen lakkoon" eli jättämään kaiken taakseen ja kohauttamaan olkapäitään nyky-yhteiskunnalle. Kuten yleisesti lakoissa, tässä lakossa kukaan ei esitä kenellekään vaatimuksia, sen sijaan yksilöt vain jättävät roolinsa yhteiskunnassa, kun mitta tulee täyteen.

Ajatus olkapäiden kohottamisesta ja taustalle poistumisesta on kiehtova. Ei käy kiistäminen, etteikö se välillä kävisi mielessä. Nykymaailmassa tämä voisi tarkoittaa vaikka sitä, että tietyn pisteen, tietyn riippumattomuuden tilan, saavutettua sitä voisi todeta, että nyt riitti ja muuttaisi ulkomaille. Mielettömäksi menevä verotus voisi olla yksi tällainen laukaiseva tekijä. Itse voisin lähteä vaikka Sveitsiin.

 

Onko downshiftaaminen mielen lakkoilua?

 

Toisaalta aloin miettimään, onko nykyilmiöistä downshiftaaminen yksi muoto "to shrugg" eli liittyä mielen lakkoon? Osittain on, sanoisin, mutta kuitenkin vain niissä tapauksissa, joissa downshiftaaja jää elämään omilla saavutuksillaan, eikä valinnallaan rasita muuta yhteiskuntaa. Tiedän monia tapauksia, jotka työnteollaan ja sijoitustoiminnallaan tähtäävät tiettyyn varallisuustasoon, tiettyyn taloudelliseen riippumattomuuteen, jonka jälkeen he tahtovat alkaa elää rennommin ja alkaa toteuttamaan aktiivisemmin arvojensa mukaisia asioita. Tällaiseen valintaan yksilöllä tulee olla vapaa oikeus. Toinen downshiftaamisen muoto eli vähemmän tekeminen ja muiden siivellä eläminen siitä syystä, että ei viitsitä tehdä enempää, ei sen sijaan sovellu randilaiseen ajatteluun.

Kirjan parhaat palat

Kirjan parhaat palat voi kiteyttää kolmeen osioon. Francisco d'Anconian puhe juhlissa esitettyyn väitteeseen, että raha on kaiken pahan alku, on mestarillinen tykitys, joka ei selittelyitä kaipaa. Puhe löytyy kokonaisuudessaan alta. Toinen huippukohta on Ragnar Danneskjöldin perustelut sille, miksi hän haluaa hävittää Robin Hoodin levittämän ajattelun maailmasta. Ensiajatuksella tuskin kukaan sanoo vastustavansa Robin Hoodia, mutta kun kuulee Danneskjöldin argumentit, alkaa asiaa ajattelemaan uudella tavalla. Ehkä rikkaiden ryöstäminen ei sittenkään ole oikeudenmukaista. Kolmas kohokohta on John Galtin puheet, erityisesti kirjan viimeisessä kappaleessa esitetty loppupuhe, jossa kiteytyy Randin filosofian ydinkohdat ja Atlas Shruggedin sanoma. Tämä puhe on 66 sivua pitkä, joten liitän siihen vain linkin. Nämä lukemalla saa jo jonkinlaisen käsityksen siitä, millainen mestariteos Ayn Randin Atlas Shrugged on. Jos elämässäsi on joskus riittävästi aikaa tälle teokselle, suosittelen lukemaan, koska se takuulla jättää jäljen omaan ajatteluusi koko loppuelämäksi.

Francisco d'Anconia's Money Speech

"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Aconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

"When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor – your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money. Is this what you consider evil?

"Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions – and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.

"But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made – before it can be looted or mooched – made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.

"To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except by the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss – the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery – that you must offer them values, not wounds – that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best your money can find. And when men live by trade – with reason, not force, as their final arbiter – it is the best product that wins, the best performance, then man of best judgment and highest ability – and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?

"But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality – the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.

"Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants; money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

"Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth – the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve that mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

"Money is your means of survival. The verdict which you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you'll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money?

"Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money?

"Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is the loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money – and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.

"Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.

"Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another – their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.

"But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride, or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich – will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt – and of his life, as he deserves.

"Then you will see the rise of the double standard – the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money – the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law – men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims – then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

"Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion – when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice – you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

"Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it becomes, marked: 'Account overdrawn.'

"When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world?' You are.

"You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood – money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves – slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer. Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers – as industrialists.

"To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money – and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being – the self-made man – the American industrialist.

"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose – because it contains all the others – the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money'. No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity – to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted, or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality.

"Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters' continents. Now the looters' credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide – as, I think, he will.

"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns – or dollars. Take your choice – there is no other – and your time is running out."

Ragnar Danneskjöld on Robin Hood

"I've chosen a special mission of my own. I'm after a man whom I want to destroy. He died many centuries ago, but until the last trace of him is wiped out of men's minds, we will not have a decent world to live in".
What man?
Robin Hood. He was the man who robbed the rich and gave to the poor. Well, I'm the man who robs the poor and gives to the rich - or, to be exact, the man who robs the thieving poor and gives back to the productive rich.
What in blazes do you mean?
... Ragnar:  ... I have never robbed a private ship and never taken any private property. Nor have I ever robbed a military vessel - because the purpose of a military fleet is to protect from the violence the citizens who paid for it, which is the proper function of a government. But I have seized every lootcarrier that came within range of my guns, every government relief ship, subsidy ship, loan ship, gift ship, every vessel with a cargo of goods taken by force from some men for the unpaid, unearned benefit of others. I seized the boats that sailed under the flag of the idea which I am fighting: the idea that need is a sacred idol requiring human sacrifices - that the need of some men is the knife of a guillotine hanging over others - that all of us must live with our work, our hopes, our plans, our efforts at the mercy of the moment when that knife will descend upon us - and that the extent of our ability is the extent of our danger, so that success will bring our heads doen on the block, while failure will give us the right to pull the cord. This is the horror which Robin Hood immortalized as an ideal of righteousness. It is said that he fought against the looting rulers and returned the loot to those who had been robbed, but that is not the meaning of the legend which has survived. He is not remembered as a champion of property, but as a champion of need, not as a defender of the robbed, but as a provider of the poor. He is held to be the first man who assumed a halo of virtue by practicing charity with wealth which he did not own, by giving away goods which he had not produced, by making others pay for the luxury of his pity. He is the man who became a symbol of the idea that need, not achievement, is the source of rights, that we don’t have to produce, only to want, that the earned does not belong to us, but the unearned does. He became a justification for every mediocrity who, unable to make his own living, had demanded the power to dispose of the property of his betters, by proclaiming his willingness to devote his life to his inferiors at the price of robbing his superiors. It is this foulest of creatures – the double-parasite who lives on the sores of the poor and the blood of the rich – whom men have come to regard as the moral idea." ". . . Do you wonder why the world is collapsing around us? That is what I am fighting, Mr. Rearden. Until men learn that of all human symbols, Robin Hood is the most immoral and the most contemptible, there will be no justice on earth and no way for mankind to survive."

This in John Galt Speaking

John Galt's final speech can be read here. It's circa 66 pages long, but still highly worth of reading.

"We are on strike against self-immolation. We are on strike against the creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties. We are on strike against the dogma that the pursuit of one's happiness is evil. We are on strike against the doctrine that life is guilt. There is a difference between our strike and all those practiced for centuries: our strike consists, not of making demands, but of granting them. We are evil, according to your morality. We have chosen not to harm you any longer. We are useless, according to your economics. We have chosen not to exploit you any longer. We are dangerous and to be shackled, according to your politics. We have chosen not to endager you, not to wear the shackles any longer. We are only an illusion, accoring to your philosophy. We have chosen not to blind you any longer and have left you free to face reality - the reality you wanted, the world as you see it now, a world without mind." (1011)

Some extra quotations 

"What's wealth but the means of expanding one's life? There's two ways one can do it: either by producing more or by producing it faster. And that's what I'm doing: I'm manufacturing time... I'm producing everything I need, I'm working to improve my methods, and every hour I save is an hour added to my life." (722)

"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 mine." (731)

"There is only one kind of men who have never been on strike in the whole of human history. Every other kind and class has stopped, when they so wished, and have presented demands to the world, claiming to be indispensable - except the men who have carried the world on their shoulders, have kept it alive, have endured torture as sole payment, but have never walked out on the human race. Well, their turn has come. Let the world discover who they are, what they do and what happens when they refuse to function. This is the strike of the men of the mind, Miss Taggart. This is the mind on strike." John Galt (738)

Some links to Atlas Shrugged:

http://www.dailypaul.com/133313/francisco-d-anconias-ayn-rands-money-speech-in-atlas-shrugged

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged