The Ayn Rand Lexicon - Objectivism From A To Z Part 29

[ITOE, 106.].

Mysticism requires the notion of the unknowable, which is revealed to some and withheld from others; this divides men into those who feel guilt and those who cash in on it. The two groups are interchangeable, according to circ.u.mstances. When being judged, a mystic cries: "I couldn't help it!" When judging others, he declares: "You can't know, but I can."

["The Psychulogy of 'Psychologizing,' "TO, March 1971, 1.]

There is only one state that fulfills the mystic's longing for infinity, non-causality, non-ident.i.ty: death. No matter what unintelligible causes he ascribes to his incommunicable feelings, whoever rejects reality rejects existence-and the feelings that move him from then on are hatred for all the values of man's life, and l.u.s.t for all the evils that destroy it.

[GS, FNI, 202; pb 162.]

The advocates of mysticism are motivated not by a quest for truth, but by hatred for man's mind.

["An Unt.i.tled Letter," PWNI, 123; pb 102.]

For centuries, the mystics of spirit had existed by running a protection racket-by making life on earth unbearable, then charging you for consolation and relief, by forbidding all the virtues that make existence possible, then riding on the shoulders of your guilt, by declaring production and joy to be sins, then collecting blackmail from the sinners.

[GS, FNI, 190; pb 153.]

I have said that faith and force are corollaries, and that mysticism will always lead to the rule of brutality. The cause of it is contained in the very nature of mysticism. Reason is the only objective means of communication and of understanding among men; when men deal with one another by means of reason, reality is their objective standard and frame of reference. But when men claim to possess supernatural means of knowledge, no persuasion, communication or understanding are possible. Why do we kill wild animals in the jungle? Because no other way of dealing with them is open to us. And that is the state to which mysticism reduces mankind-a state where, in case of disagreement, men have no recourse except to physical violence. And more: no man or mystical elite can hold a whole society subjugated to their arbitrary a.s.sertions, edicts and whims, without the use of force. Anyone who resorts to the formula: "It's so, because I say so," will have to reach for a gun, sooner or later. Communists, like all materialists, are neo-mystics: it does not matter whether one rejects the mind in favor of revelations or in favor of conditioned reflexes. The basic premise and the results are the same.

["Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World," PWNI, 85; pb 70.]

Men have been taught either that knowledge is impossible (skepticism) or that it is available without effort (mysticism). These two positions appear to be antagonists, but are, in fact, two variants on the same theme, two sides of the same fraudulent coin: the attempt to escape the responsibility of rational cognition and the absolutism of reality-the attempt to a.s.sert the primacy of consciousness over existence.

Although skepticism and mysticism are ultimately interchangeable, and the dominance of one always leads to the resurgence of the other, they differ in the form of their inner contradiction-the contradiction, in both cases, between their philosophical doctrine and their psychological motivation. Philosophically, the mystic is usually an exponent of the intrinsic (revealed) school of epistemology; the skeptic is usually an advocate of epistemological subjectivism. But, psychologically, the mystic is a subjectivist who uses intrinsicism as a means to claim the primacy of his consciousness over that of others. The skeptic is a disillusioned intrinsicist who, having failed to find automatic supernatural guidance, seeks a subst.i.tute in the collective subjectivism of others.

[ITOE, 105.].

Only three brief periods of history were culturally dominated by a philosophy of reason: ancient Greece, the Renaissance, the nineteenth century. These three periods were the source of mankind's greatest progress in all fields of intellectual achievement-and the eras of greatest political freedom. The rest of human history was dominated by mysticism of one kind or another, that is: by the belief that man's mind is impotent, that reason is futile or evil or both, and that man must be guided by some irrational "instinct" or feeling or intuition or revelation, by some form of blind, unreasoning faith. All the centuries dominated by mysticism were the eras of political tyranny and slavery, of rule by brute force-from the primitive barbarism of the jungle-to the Pharaohs of Egypt-to the emperors of Rome-to the feudalism of the Dark and Middle Ages-to the absolute monarchies of Europe-to the modern dictators.h.i.+ps of Soviet Russia, n.a.z.i Germany and all their lesser carbon copies.

["The Intellectual Bankruptcy of Our Age," pamphlet, 5.]

See also AXIOMS; CAUSALITY; CONSCIOUSNESS; DICTATOR; EMOTIONS; EPISTEMOLOGY; G.o.d; FAITH; KANT, IMMANUEL; KNOWLEDGE; LOGIC; MYSTICS of SPIRIT and of MUSCLE; OBJECTIVITY; PERCEPTION; PHYSICAL FORCE; PROOF; REASON; RELIGION; SECOND-HANDERS; SKEPTICISM; SUPERNATURALISM.

Mystics of Spirit and of Muscle. As products of the split between man's soul and body, there are two kinds of teachers of the Morality of Death: the mystics of spirit and the mystics of muscle, whom you call the spiritualists and the materialists, those who believe in consciousness without existence and those who believe in existence without consciousness. Both demand the surrender of your mind, one to their revelations, the other to their reflexes. No matter how loudly they posture in the roles of irreconcilable antagonists, their moral codes are alike, and so are their aims: in matter-the enslavement of man's body, in spirit-the destruction of his mind.

The good, say the mystics of spirit, is G.o.d, a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive-a definition that invalidates man's consciousness and nullifies his concepts of existence. The good, say the mystics of muscle, is Society-a thing which they define as an organism that possesses no physical form, a super-being embodied in no one in particular and everyone in general except yourself. Man's mind, say the mystics of spirit, must be subordinated to the will of G.o.d. Man's mind, say the mystics of muscle, must be subordinated to the will of Society. Man's standard of value, say the mystics of spirit, is the pleasure of G.o.d, whose standards are beyond man's power of comprehension and must be accepted on faith. Man's standard of value, say the mystics of muscle, is the pleasure of Society, whose standards are beyond man's right of judgment and must be obeyed as a primary absolute. The purpose of man's life, say both, is to become an abject zombie who serves a purpose he does not know, for reasons he is not to question. His reward, say the mystics of spirit, will be given to him beyond the grave. His reward, say the mystics of muscle, will be given on earth-to his great-grandchildren.

Selfishness-say both-is man's evil. Man's good-say both-is to give up his personal desires, to deny himself, renounce himself, surrender; man's good is to negate the life he lives. Sacrifice-cry both-is the essence of morality, the highest virtue within man's reach.

[GS, FNI, 171; pb 138.]

The mystics of spirit declare that they possess an extra sense you lack: this special sixth sense consists of contradicting the whole of the knowledge of your five. The mystics of muscle do not bother to a.s.sert any claim to extrasensory perception: they merely declare that your senses are not valid, and that their wisdom consists of perceiving your blindness by some manner of unspecified means. Both kinds demand that you invalidate your own consciousness and surrender yourself into their power. They offer you, as proof of their superior knowledge, the fact that they a.s.sert the opposite of everything you know, and as proof of their superior ability to deal with existence, the fact that they lead you to misery, self-sacrifice, starvation, destruction.

They claim that they perceive a mode of being superior to your existence on this earth. The mystics of spirit call it "another dimension," which consists of denying dimensions. The mystics of muscle call it "the future," which consists of denying the present.

[Ibid., 184; pb 148.]

What is the nature of that superior world to which they sacrifice the world that exists? The mystics of spirit curse matter, the mystics of muscle curse profit. The first wish men to profit by renouncing the earth, the second wish men to inherit the earth by renouncing all profit. Their non-material, non-profit worlds are realms where rivers run with milk and coffee, where wine spurts from rocks at their command, where pastry drops on them from clouds at the price of opening their mouth. On this material, profit-chasing earth, an enormous investment of virtue -of intelligence, integrity, energy, skill-is required to construct a railroad to carry them the distance of one mile; in their non-material, non-profit world, they travel from planet to planet at the cost of a wish. If an honest person asks them: "How?"-they answer with righteous scorn that a "how" is the concept of vulgar realists; the concept of superior spirits is "Somehow." On this earth restricted by matter and profit, rewards are achieved by thought; in a world set free of such restrictions rewards are achieved by wis.h.i.+ng.

And that is the whole of their shabby secret. The secret of all their esoteric philosophies, of all their dialectics and super-senses, of their evasive eyes and snarling words, the secret for which they destroy civilization, language, industries and lives, the secret for which they pierce their own eyes and eardrums, grind out their senses, blank out their minds, the purpose for which they dissolve the absolutes of reason, logic, matter, existence, reality-is to erect upon that plastic fog a single holy absolute: their Wish.

[Ibid., 185; pb 149.]

For centuries, the mystics of spirit have proclaimed that faith is superior to reason, but have not dared deny the existence of reason. Their heirs and product, the mystics of muscle, have completed their job and achieved their dream: they proclaim that everything is faith, and call it a revolt against believing. As revolt against unproved a.s.sertions, they proclaim that nothing can be proved; as revolt against supernatural knowledge, they proclaim that no knowledge is possible; as revolt against the enemies of science, they proclaim that science is superst.i.tion; as revolt against the enslavement of the mind, they proclaim that there is no mind.

[Ibid., 196; pb 158.]

See also MYSTICISM.

N.

National Rights. A nation, like any other group, is only a number of individuals and can have no rights other than the rights of its individual citizens. A free nation-a nation that recognizes, respects and protects the individual rights of its citizens-has a right to its territorial integrity, its social system and its form of government. The government of such a nation is not the ruler, but the servant or agent of its citizens and has no rights other than the rights delegated to it by the citizens for a specific, delimited task (the task of protecting them from physical force, derived from their right of self-defense)....

Such a nation has a right to its sovereignty (derived from the rights of its citizens) and a right to demand that its sovereignty be respected by all other nations.

["Collectivized 'Rights,' "VOS, 138; pb 103.]

Dictators.h.i.+p nations are outlaws. Any free nation had the right to invade n.a.z.i Germany and, today, has the right to invade Soviet Russia, Cuba or any other slave pen. Whether a free nation chooses to do so or not is a matter of its own self-interest, not of respect for the nonexistent "rights" of gang rulers. It is not a free nation's duty to liberate other nations at the price of self-sacrifice, but a free nation has the right to do it. when and if it so chooses.

[Ibid., 140; pb 104.]

See also COLLECTIVISM; DEMOCRACY; FOREIGN POLICY; FREEDOM; INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS; SECESSION; SELF-DETERMINATION of NATIONS.

Naturalism. [Today we observe] two broad categories of art: Romanticism, which recognizes the existence of man's volition-and Naturalism, which denies it.

["What Is Romanticism?" RM, 81; pb 99.]

[The] basic premises of Romanticism and Naturalism (the volition or anti-volition premise) affect all the other aspects of a literary work, such as the choice of theme and the quality of the style, but it is the nature of the story structure-the attribute of plot or plotlessness-that represents the most important difference between them and serves as the main distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristic for cla.s.sifying a given work in one category or the other.

[Ibid., 83; pb 101.]

Instead of presenting a metaphysical view of man and of existence, the Naturalists presented a journalistic view. In answer to the question: "What is man?"-they said: "This is what the village grocers are, in the south of France, in the year 1887," or: "This is what the inhabitants of the slums are, in New York, in 1921," or: "These are the folks next door."

["The Esthetic Vacuum of Our Age," RM, 114; pb 124.]

The pract.i.tioners of the literary school diametrically opposed to mine -the school of Naturalism-claim that a writer must reproduce what they call "real life," allegedly "as it is," exercising no selectivity and no value-judgments. By "reproduce," they mean "photograph"; by "real life," they mean whatever given concretes they happen to observe; by "as it is," they mean "as it is lived by the people around them." But observe that these Naturalists-or the good writers among them-are extremely selective in regard to two attributes of literature: style and characterization. Without selectivity, it would be impossible to achieve any sort of characterization whatever, neither of an unusual man nor of an average one who is to be offered as statistically typical of a large segment of the population. Therefore, the Naturalists' opposition to selectivity applies to only one attribute of literature: the content or subject. It is in regard to his choice of subject that a novelist must exercise no choice, they claim.

Why?

The Naturalists have never given an answer to that question-not a rational, logical, noncontradictory answer. Why should a writer photograph his subjects indiscriminately and unselectively? Because they "really" happened? To record what really happened is the job of a reporter or of a historian, not of a novelist. To enlighten readers and educate them? That is the job of science, not of literature, of nonfiction writing, not of fiction. To improve men's lot by exposing their misery? But that is a value-judgment and a moral purpose and a didactic "message" -all of which are forbidden by the Naturalist doctrine. Besides, to improve anything one must know what const.i.tutes an improvement -and to know that, one must know what is the good and how to achieve it-and to know that, one must have a whole system of value-judgments, a system of ethics, which is anathema to the Naturalists.

Thus, the Naturalists' position amounts to giving a novelist full esthetic freedom in regard to means, but not in regard to ends. He may exercise choice, creative imagination, value-judgments in regard to how he portrays things, but not in regard to what he portrays-in regard to style or characterization, but not in regard to subject. Man-the subject of literature-must not be viewed or portrayed selectively. Man must be accepted as the given, the unchangeable, the not-to-be-judged, the status quo. But since we observe that men do change, that they differ from one another, that they pursue different values, who, then, is to determine the human status quo? Naturalism's implicit answer is: everybody except the novelist.

The novelist-according to the Naturalist doctrine-must neither judge nor value. He is not a creator, but only a recording secretary whose master is the rest of mankind. Let others p.r.o.nounce judgments, make decisions, select goals, fight over values and determine the course, the fate and the soul of man. The novelist is the only outcast and deserter of that battle. His is not to reason why-his is only to trot behind his master, notebook in hand, taking down whatever the master dictates, picking up such pearls or such swinishness as the master may choose to drop.

["The Goal of My Writing," RM, 163; pb 164.]

The Naturalists object that a plot is an artificial contrivance, because in "real life" events do not fall into a logical pattern. That claim depends on the observer's viewpoint, in the literal sense of the word "viewpoint." A nearsighted man standing two feet away from the wall of a house and staring at it, would declare that the map of the city's streets is an artificial, invented contrivance. That is not what an airplane pilot would say, flying two thousand feet above the city. The events of men's lives follow the logic of men's premises and values-as one can observe if one looks past the range of the immediate moment, past the trivial irrelevancies, repet.i.tions and routines of daily living, and sees the essentials, the turning points, the direction of a man's life.

["Basic Principles of Literature," RM, 60; pb 83.]

The Naturalists object that the events of men's lives are inconclusive, diffuse and seldom fall into the clear-cut, dramatic situations required by a plot structure. This is predominantly true-and this is the chief esthetic argument against the Naturalist position. Art is a selective recreation of reality, its means are evaluative abstractions, its task is the concretization of metaphysical essentials. To isolate and bring into clear focus, into a single issue or a single scene, the essence of a conflict which, in "real life," might be atomized and scattered over a lifetime in the form of meaningless clashes, to condense a long, steady drizzle of buckshot into the explosion of a blockbuster-that is the highest, hardest and most demanding function of art. To default on that function is to default on the essence of art and to engage in child's play along its periphery.

[Ibid., 61; pb 83.]

Although Naturalism is a product of the nineteenth century, its spiritual father, in modern history, was Shakespeare. The premise that man does not possess volition, that his destiny is determined by an innate "tragic flaw," is fundamental in Shakespeare's work. But, granted this false premise, his approach is metaphysical, not journalistic. His characters are not drawn from "real life," they are not copies of observed concretes nor statistical averages: they are grand-scale abstractions of the character traits which a determinist would regard as inherent in human nature: ambition, power-l.u.s.t, jealousy, greed, etc.

["What Is Romanticism?" RM, 102; pb 115.]

No matter how concrete-bound their theories forced them to be, the writers of the Naturalist school still had to exercise their power of abstraction to a significant extent: in order to reproduce "real-life" characters, they had to select the characteristics they regarded as essential, differentiating them from the non-essential or accidental. Thus they were led to subst.i.tute statistics for values as a criterion of selectivity: that which is statistically prevalent among men, they held, is metaphysically significant and representative of man's nature; that which is rare or exceptional, is not. (See Chapter 7.) At first, having rejected the element of plot and even of story, the Naturalists concentrated on the element of characterization-and psychological perceptiveness was the chief value that the best of them had to offer. With the growth of the statistical method, however, that value shrank and vanished: characterization was replaced by indiscriminate recording and buried under a catalogue of trivia, such as minute inventories of a character's apartment. clothing and meals. Naturalism lost the attempted universality of Shakespeare or Tolstoy, descending from metaphysics to photography with a rapidly shrinking lens directed at the range of the immediate moment-until the final remnants of Naturalism became a superficial, meaningless, "unserious" school that had nothing to say about human existence.

[Ibid., 104; pb 117.]

The obvious question, to which the heirs of statistical Naturalism have no answer, is: if heroes and geniuses are not to be regarded as representative of mankind, by reason of their numerical rarity, why are freaks and monsters to be regarded as representative? Why are the problems of a bearded lady of greater universal significance than the problems of a genius? Why is the soul of a murderer worth studying, but not the soul of a hero?

The answer lies in the basic metaphysical premise of Naturalism, whether its pract.i.tioners ever chose it consciously or not: as an outgrowth of modern philosophy, that basic premise is anti-man, anti-mind, anti-life; and, as an outgrowth of the altruist morality, Naturalism is a frantic escape from moral judgment-a long, wailing plea for pity, for tolerance, for the forgiveness of anything.

["The Esthetic Vacuum of Our Age," RM. 116; pb 125.]

See also ART; CHARACTERIZATION; DETERMINISM; FREE WILL; LITERATURE; PLOT; ROMANTICISM; SENSE of LIFE; STYLIZATION; VALUES.

Nature. What is nature? Nature is existence-the sum of that which is. It is usually called "nature" when we think of it as a system of interconnected, interacting ent.i.ties governed by law. So "nature" really means the universe of ent.i.ties acting and interacting in accordance with their ident.i.ties.

[Leonard Peikoff. "The Philosophy of Objectivism" lecture series (1976), Lecture 2.]

See also ATHEISM; CAUSALITY; EXISTENCE; SUPERNATURALISM; UNIVERSE.

n.a.z.ism. See Fascism/n.a.z.ism.

Necessity. As far as metaphysical reality is concerned (omitting human actions from consideration, for the moment), there are no "facts which happen to be but could have been otherwise" as against "facts which must be." There are only: facts which are.... Since things are what they are, since everything that exists possesses a specific ident.i.ty, nothing in reality can occur causelessly or by chance. The nature of an ent.i.ty determines what it can do and, in any given set of circ.u.mstances, dictates what it will do. The Law of Causality is entailed by the Law of Ident.i.ty. Ent.i.ties follow certain laws of action in consequence of their ident.i.ty, and have no alternative to doing so. Metaphysically, all facts are inherent in the ident.i.ties of the ent.i.ties that exist; i.e., all facts are "necessary." In this sense, to be is to be "necessary." The concept of "necessity," in a metaphysical context, is superfluous.

[Leonard Peikoff, "The a.n.a.lytic-Synthetic Dichotomy," ITOE, 146.]

A typical package-deal, used by professors of philosophy, runs as follows: to prove the a.s.sertion that there is no such thing as "necessity" in the universe, a professor declares that just as this country did not have to have fifty states, there could have been forty-eight or fifty-two-so the solar system did not have to have nine planets, there could have been seven or eleven. It is not sufficient, he declares, to prove that something is, one must also prove that it had to be-and since nothing had to be, nothing is certain and anything goes.

The technique of undercutting man's mind consists in palming off the man-made as if it were the metaphysically given, then ascribing to nature the concepts that refer only to men's lack of knowledge, such as "chance" or "contingency," then reversing the two elements of the package-deal. From the a.s.sertion: "Man is unpredictable, therefore nature is unpredictable," the argument goes to: "Nature possesses volition, man does not-nature is free, man is ruled by unknowable forces-nature is not to be conquered, man is."

["The Metaphysical Versus the Man-Made," PWNI, 34; pb 28.]

See also a.n.a.lYTIC-SYNTHETIC DICHOTOMY; CAUSALITY; IDENt.i.tY; FREE WILL; METAPHYSICAL vs. MAN-MADE; "PACKAGE-DEALING," FALLACY of; PRIMACY of EXISTENCE vs. PRIMACY of CONSCIOUSNESS.

Neurosis vs. Psychosis. A man who has psychological problems is a conscious being; his cognitive faculty is hampered, burdened, slowed down, but not destroyed. A neurotic is not a psychotic. Only a psychotic is presumed to suffer from a total break with reality and to have no control over his actions or the operations of his consciousness (and even this is not always true). A neurotic retains the ability to perceive reality, and to control his consciousness and his actions (this control is merely more difficult for him than for a healthy person). So long as he is not psychotic, this is the control that a man cannot lose and must not abdicate.

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

See also FREE WILL; MENTAL HEALTHY: "PSYCHOLOGIZING"; PSYCHOLOGY; RATIONALITY.

New Left. Old-line Marxists claimed [falsely] that they were champions of reason, that socialism or communism was a scientific social system, that an advanced technology could not function in a capitalist society, but required a scientifically planned and organized human community to bring its maximum benefits to every man, in the form of material comforts and a higher standard of living.... [T]oday we see the spectacle of old Marxists blessing, aiding and abetting the young hoodlums [of the New Left] (who are their products and heirs) who proclaim the superiority of feelings over reason, of faith over knowledge, of leisure over production, of spiritual concerns over material comforts, of primitive nature over technology, of astrology over science, of drugs over consciousness.

["The Left: Old and New," NL, 90.]

If concern with poverty and human suffering were the collectivists' motive, they would have become champions of capitalism long ago; they would have discovered that it is the only political system capable of producing abundance. But they evaded the evidence as long as they could. When the issue became overwhelmingly clear to the whole world, the collectivists were faced with a choice: either turn to the right, in the name of humanity-or to the left, in the name of dictatorial power. They turned to the left-the New Left.

Instead of their old promises that collectivism would create universal abundance and their denunciations of capitalism for creating poverty, they are now denouncing capitalism for creating abundance. Instead of promising comfort and security for everyone, they are now denouncing people for being comfortable and secure.

["The Anti-Industrial Revolution," NL, 141.]

Intellectually, the activists of the New Left are the most docile conformists. They have accepted as dogma all the philosophical beliefs of their elders for generations: the notions that faith and feeling are superior to reason, that material concerns are evil, that love is the solution to all problems, that the merging of one's self with a tribe or a community is the n.o.blest way to live. There is not a single basic principle of today's Establishment which they do not share. Far from being rebels, they embody the philosophic trend of the past 200 years (or longer): the mysticism-altruism-collectivism axis, which has dominated Western philosophy from Kant to Hegel to James and on down.

["From a Symposium," NL, 97.]

See also ALTRUISM; CAPITALISM; CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE; COLLECTIVISM; COMMUNISM; ECOLOGY/ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT; ECONOMIC GROWTH; GUILD SOCIALISM; MYSTICISM; PHYSICAL FORCE; SOCIALISM.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Philosophically, Nietzsche is a mystic and an irrationalist. His metaphysics consists of a somewhat "Byronic" and mystically "malevolent" universe; his epistemology subordinates reason to "will," or feeling or instinct or blood or innate virtues of character. But, as a poet, he projects at times (not consistently) a magnificent feeling for man's greatness, expressed in emotional, not intellectual, terms, ["Introduction to The Fountainhead," TO, March 1968, 6.]

Nietzsche's rebellion against altruism consisted of replacing the sacrifice of oneself to others by the sacrifice of others to oneself. He proclaimed that the ideal man is moved, not by reason, but by his "blood," by his innate instincts, feelings and will to power-that he is predestined by birth to rule others and sacrifice them to himself, while they are predestined by birth to be his victims and slaves-that reason, logic, principles are futile and debilitating, that morality is useless, that the "superman" is "beyond good and evil," that he is a "beast of prey" whose ultimate standard is nothing but his own whim. Thus Nietzsche's rejection of the Witch Doctor consisted of elevating Attila into a moral ideal-which meant: a double surrender of morality to the Witch Doctor.

["For the New Intellectual," FNI, 39; pb 36.]

See also ALTRUISM; BYRONIC VIEW of EXISTENCE; COLLECTIVISM; "INSTINCT"; IRRATIONALISM; MALEVOLENT UNIVERSE PREMISE; PRINCIPLES; REASON; SELFISHNESS; WHIMS/WHIM-WORs.h.i.+P.

Nineteenth Century. If you want to prove to yourself the power of ideas and, particularly, of morality-the intellectual history of the nineteenth century would be a good example to study. The greatest, unprecedented, undreamed of events and achievements were taking place before men's eyes-but men did not see them and did not understand their meaning, as they do not understand it to this day. I am speaking of the industrial revolution, of the United States and of capitalism. For the first time in history, men gained control over physical nature and threw off the control of men over men-that is: men discovered science and political freedom. The creative energy, the abundance, the wealth, the rising standard of living for every level of the population were such that the nineteenth century looks like a fiction-Utopia, like a blinding burst of sunlight, in the drab progression of most of human history. If life on earth is one's standard of value, then the nineteenth century moved mankind forward more than all the other centuries combined.

Did anyone appreciate it? Does anyone appreciate it now? Has anyone identified the causes of that historical miracle?

They did not and have not. What blinded them? The morality of altruism.

Let me explain this. There are, fundamentally, only two causes of the progress of the nineteenth century-the same two causes which you will find at the root of any happy, benevolent, progressive era in human history. One cause is psychological, the other existential-or: one pertains to man's consciousness, the other to the physical conditions of his existence. The first is reason, the second is freedom. And when I say "freedom," I do not mean poetic sloppiness, such as "freedom from want" or "freedom from fear" or "freedom from the necessity of earning a living." I mean "freedom from compulsion-freedom from rule by physical force." Which means: political freedom.

["Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World," PWNI, 79; pb 65.]

See also AMERICA; CAPITALISM; FREEDOM; HISTORY; PHYSICAL FORCE; WAR.

Nominalism. The "nominalists" ... hold that all our ideas are only images of concretes, and that abstractions are merely "names" which we give to arbitrary groupings of concretes on the basis of vague resemblances.... (There is also the extreme nominalist position, the modern one, which consists of declaring that the problem [of universals] is a meaningless issue, that "reality" is a meaningless term, that we can never know whether our concepts correspond to anything or not, that our knowledge consists of words-and that words are an arbitrary social convention.) [ITOE, 2.].

Denying that concepts have an objective basis in the facts of reality, nominalists declare that the source of concepts is a subjective human decision: men arbitrarily select certain characteristics to serve as the basis (the "essentials") for a cla.s.sification; thereafter, they agree to apply the same term to any concretes that happen to exhibit these "essentials," no matter how diverse these concretes are in other respects. On this view, the concept (the term) means only those characteristics initially decreed to be "essential." The other characteristics of the subsumed concretes bear no necessary connection to the "essential" characteristics, and are excluded from the concept's meaning.

Observe that, while condemning Plato's mystic view of a concept's meaning, the nominalists embrace the same view in a skeptic version. Condemning the essence-accident dichotomy as implicitly arbitrary, they inst.i.tute an explicitly arbitrary equivalent. Condemning Plato's "intuitive" selection of essences as a disguised subjectivism, they spurn the disguise and adopt subjectivism as their official theory-as though a concealed vice were heinous, but a brazenly flaunted one, rational. Condemning Plato's supernaturally-determined essences, they declare that essences are socially-determined, thus transferring to the province of human whim what had once been the prerogative of Plato's divine realm. The nominalists' "advance" over Plato consisted of secularizing his theory. To secularize an error is still to commit it.

Its form, however, changes. Nominalists do not say that a concept designates only an ent.i.ty's "essence," excluding its "accidents." Their secularized version is: A concept is only a shorthand tag for the characteristics stated in its definition; a concept and its definition are interchangeable; a concept means only its definition.

It is the Platonic-nominalist approach to concept-formation, expressed in such views as these, that gives rise to the theory of the a.n.a.lytic-synthetic dichotomy.

[Leonard Peikoff, "The a.n.a.lytic-Synthetic Dichotomy," ITOE, 129.]

The nominalist view that a concept is merely a shorthand tag for its definition, represents a profound failure to grasp the function of a definition in the process of concept-formation. The penalty for this failure is that the process of definition, in the hands of the nominalists, achieves the exact opposite of its actual purpose. The purpose of a definition is to keep a concept distinct from all others, to keep it connected to a specific group of existents. On the nominalist view, it is precisely this connection that is severed: as soon as a concept is defined, it ceases to designate existents; and designates instead only the defining characteristic.

And further: On a rational view of definitions, a definition organizes and condenses-and thus helps one to retain-a wealth of knowledge about the characteristics of a concept's units. On the nominalist view, it is precisely this knowledge that is discarded when one defines a concept: as soon as a defining characteristic is chosen, all the other characteristics of the units are banished from the concept, which shrivels to mean merely the definition. For instance, as long as a child's concept of "man" is retained ostensively, the child knows that man has a head, two eyes, two arms, etc.; on the nominalist view, as soon as the child defines "man," he discards all this knowledge; thereafter, "man" means to him only: "a thing with rationality and animality."