Part 10 (1/2)
[Ibid., 92; pb 79.]
The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or surbordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive. To a creator, all relations with men are secondary.
[Ibid.]
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.
[Ibid., 93; pb 80.]
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 egoist 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.
[Ibid., 94; pb 80.]
See also ALTRUISM; COOPERATION; INDEPENDENCE; INDIVIDUALISM; INTELLIGENCE; PRODUCTIVENESS; PYRAMID of ABILITY; SECOND-HANDERS; SELFISHNESS.
Credit. In all its countless variations and applications, ”credit” means money, i.e., unconsumed goods, loaned by one productive person (or group) to another, to be repaid out of future production. Even the credit extended for a consumption purpose, such as the purchase of an automobile, is based on the productive record and prospects of the borrower. Credit is not... a magic piece of paper that reverses cause and effect, and transforms consumption into a source of production.
[”Egalitarianism and Inflation,” PWNI, 160; pb 132.]
All credit transactions are contractual agreements. A credit transaction is any exchange which involves a pa.s.sage of time between the payment and the receipt of goods or services. This includes the vast majority of economic transactions in a complex industrial society.
[”Government Financing in a Free Society,” VOS, 158; pb 117.]
See also CONSUMPTION; DEFICIT FINANCING; INTEREST (on LOANS); INVESTMENT; MONEY; PURCHASING POWER; SAVINGS.
Crime. A crime is a violation of the right(s) of other men by force (or fraud). It is only the initiation of physical force against others-i.e., the recourse to violence-that can be cla.s.sified as a crime in a free society (as distinguished from a civil wrong). Ideas, in a free society, are not a crime-and neither can they serve as the justification of a crime.
[” 'Political' Crimes,” NL, 99.]
There can be no such thing as a political crime under the American system of law. Since an individual has the right to hold and to propagate any ideas he chooses (obviously including political ideas), the government may not infringe his right; it may neither penalize nor reward him for his ideas; it may not take any judicial cognizance whatever of his ideology.
By the same principle, the government may not give special leniency to the perpetrator of a crime, on the grounds of the nature of his ideas.
[Ibid.]
All actions defined as criminal in a free society are actions involving force-and only such actions are answered by force.
Do not be misled by sloppy expressions such as ”A murderer commits a crime against society.” It is not society that a murderer murders, but an individual man. It is not a social right that he breaks, but an individual right. He is not punished for hurting a collective-he has not hurt a whole collective-he has hurt one man. If a criminal robs ten men-it is still not ”society” that he has robbed, but ten individuals. There are no ”crimes against society”-all crimes are committed against specific men, against individuals. And it is precisely the duty of a proper social system and of a proper government to protect an individual against criminal attack-against force.
[”Textbook of Americanism,” pamphlet, 7.]
See also FRAUD; INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS; PHYSICAL FORCE; RETROACTIVE LAW; RIGHTS of the ACCUSED; SOCIETY.
”Crow Epistemology.” See Unit-Economy.
Culture. 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 ma.s.ses, but the sum of the intellectual achievements of individual men.
[”Racism,” VOS, 174; pb 127.]
A nation's culture is the sum of the intellectual achievements of individual men, which their fellow-citizens have accepted in whole or in part, and which have influenced the nation's way of life. Since a culture is a complex battleground of different ideas and influences, to speak of a ”culture” is to speak only of the dominant ideas, always allowing for the existence of dissenters and exceptions.
[”Don't Let It Go,” PWNI, 250; pb 205.]
The acceptance of the achievements of an individual by other individuals does not represent ”ethnicity”: it represents a cultural division of labor in a free market; it represents a conscious, individual choice on the part of all the men involved; the achievements may be scientific or technological or industrial or intellectual or esthetic-and the sum of such accepted achievements const.i.tutes a free, civilized nation's culture. Tradition has nothing to do with it; tradition is being challenged and blasted daily in a free, civilized society: its citizens accept ideas and products because they are true and/or good-not because they are old nor because their ancestors accepted them. In such a society, concretes change, but what remains immutable-by individual conviction, not by tradition-are those philosophical principles which correspond to reality, i.e., which are true.
[”Global Balkanization,” pamphlet, 6.]
See also CIVILIZATION; COLLECTIVISM; ”ETHNICITY”; INDIVIDUALISM; TRADITION.
Cynicism. There is nothing so naive as cynicism. A cynic is one who believes that men are innately depraved, that irrationality and cowardice are their basic characteristics, that fear is the most potent of human incentives-and. therefore, that the most practical method of dealing with men is to count on their stupidity, appeal to their knavery, and keep them in constant terror.
In private life, this belief creates a criminal; in politics, it creates a statist. But, contrary to the cynic's belief, crime and statism do not pay.
A criminal might thrive on human vices, but is reduced to impotence when he comes up against the fact that ”you can't cheat an honest man.” A statist might ride to power by dispensing promises, threats and handouts to the seekers of the unearned-but he finds himself impotent in a national emergency, because the language, methods and policies which were successful with parasites, do not work when the country needs producers.
[”From My 'Future File,' ” ARL, III, 26, 3.]
When one discards ideals, the fact that a given policy (such as government controls) is evil, does not const.i.tute a reason for rejecting it. On the contrary, such an estimate serves as an incentive to adopt and expand that policy: to a cynic's mind, that which is evil, is potent and practical.
[”Ideas v. Goods,” ARL, III. II. 4.]
See also AMORALISM; APPEAs.e.m.e.nT; BENEVOLENT UNIVERSE PREMISE; HONOR; MALEVOLENT UNIVERSE PREMISE; MORAL COWARDICE; MORAL-PRACTICAL DICHOTOMY; MORALITY; VALUES; VIRTUE.
D.
Dance. Among the performing arts, dancing requires a special discussion. Is there an abstract meaning in dancing? What does dancing express?
The dance is the silent partner of music and partic.i.p.ates in a division of labor: music presents a stylized version of man's consciousness in action-the dance presents a stylized version of man's body in action. ”Stylized” means condensed to essential characteristics, which are chosen according to an artist's view of man.
Music presents an abstraction of man's emotions in the context of his cognitive processes-the dance presents an abstraction of man's emotions in the context of his physical movements. The task of the dance is not the projection of single, momentary emotions, not a pantomime version of joy or sorrow or fear, etc., but a more profound issue: the projection of metaphysical value-judgments, the stylization of man's movements by the continuous power of a fundamental emotional state -and thus the use of man's body to express his sense of life.
Every strong emotion has a kinesthetic element, experienced as an impulse to leap or cringe or stamp one's foot, etc. Just as a man's sense of life is part of all his emotions, so it is part of all his movements and determines his manner of using his body: his posture, his gestures, his way of walking, etc. We can observe a different sense of life in a man who characteristically stands straight, walks fast, gestures decisively-and in a man who characteristically slumps, shuffles heavily, gestures limply. This particular etement-the overall manner of moving-const.i.tutes the material, the special province of the dance. The dance stylizes it into a system of motion expressing a metaphysical view of man.
A system of motion is the essential element, the pre-condition of the dance as an art. An indulgence in random movements, such as those of children romping in a meadow, may be a pleasant game, but it is not art. The creation of a consistently stylized, metaphysically expressive system is so rare an achievement that there are very few distinctive forms of dancing to qualify as art. Most dance performances are conglomerations of elements from different systems and of random contortions, arbitrarily thrown together, signifying nothing. A male or a female skipping, jumping or rolling over a stage is no more artistic than the children in the meadow, only more pretentious.
[”Art and Cognition.” RM, pb 66.]
Within each system, specific emotions may be projected or faintly suggested, but only as the basic style permits. Strong pa.s.sions or negative emotions cannot be projected in ballet, regardless of its librettos; it cannot express tragedy or fear-or s.e.xuality; it is a perfect medium for the expression of spiritual love. The Hindu dance can project pa.s.sions, but not positive emotions; it cannot express joy or triumph, it is eloquent in expressing fear, doom-and a physicalistic kind of s.e.xuality.
[Ibid., 68.]
Music is an independent, primary art; the dance is not. In view of their division of labor, the dance is entirely dependent on music. With the emotional a.s.sistance of music, it expresses an abstract meaning; without music, it becomes meaningless gymnastics. It is music, the voice of man's consciousness, that integrates the dance to man and to art. Music sets the terms; the task of the dance is to follow, as closely, obediently and expressively as possible. The tighter the integration of a given dance to its music-in rhythm, in mood, in style, in theme-the greater its esthetic value.
A clash between dance and music is worse than a clash between actor and play: it is an obliteration of the entire performance. It permits neither the music nor the dance to be integrated into an esthetic ent.i.ty in the viewer's mind-and it becomes a series of jumbled motions superimposed on a series of jumbled sounds.
[Ibid., 69.]
See also ART; RALLET; Ch.o.r.eOGRAPHER; MUSIC; PERFORMING ARTS; STYLIZATION.