Part 44 (1/2)
Nothing can raise a country's productivity except technology, and technology is the final product of a complex of sciences (including philosophy), each of them kept alive and moving by the achievements of a few independent minds.
[”The Moratorium on Brains,” ARL, I, 3, 5.]
The enemies of the Industrial Revolution-its displaced persons-were of the kind that had fought human progress for centuries, by every means available. In the Middle Ages, their weapon was the fear of G.o.d. In the nineteenth century, they still invoked the fear of G.o.d-for instance, they opposed the use of anesthesia on the grounds that it defies G.o.d's will, since G.o.d intended men to suffer. When this weapon wore out, they invoked the will of the collective, the group, the tribe. But since this weapon has collapsed in their hands, they are now reduced, like cornered animals, to baring their teeth and their souls, and to proclaiming that man has no right to exist-by the divine will of inanimate matter.
The demand to ”restrict” technology is the demand to restrict man's mind. It is nature-i.e., reality-that makes both these goals impossible to achieve. Technology can be destroyed, and the mind can be paralyzed, but neither can be restricted. Whenever and wherever such restrictions are attempted, it is the mind-not the state-that withers away.
[”The Anti-Industrial Revolution,” NL, 145.]
If you consider, not merely the length, but the kind of life men have to lead in the undeveloped parts of the world-”the quality of life,” to borrow, with full meaning, the ecologists' meaningless catch phrase-if you consider the squalor, the misery, the helplessness, the fear, the unspeakably hard labor, the festering diseases, the plagues, the starvation, you will begin to appreciate the role of technology in man's existence.
Make no mistake about it: it is technology and progress that the nature-lovers are out to destroy. To quote again from the Newsweek survey: ”What worries ecologists is that people now upset about the environment may ultimately look to technology to solve everything ...” This is repeated over and over again; technological solutions, they claim, will merely create new problems.
[Ibid., 138.]
Whom and what are [the ecological crusaders] attacking? It is not the luxuries of the ”idle rich,” but the availability of ”luxuries” to the broad ma.s.ses of people. They are denouncing the fact that automobiles, air conditioners and television sets are no longer toys of the rich, but are within the means of an average American worker-a beneficence that does not exist and is not fully believed anywhere else on earth.
What do they regard as the proper life for working people? A life of unrelieved drudgery, of endless, gray toil, with no rest, no travel, no pleasure-above all, no pleasure. Those drugged, fornicating hedonists do not know that man cannot live by toil alone, that pleasure is a necessity, and that television has brought more enjoyment into more lives than all the public parks and settlement houses combined.
What do they regard as luxury? Anything above the ”bare necessities” of physical survival-with the explanation that men would not have to labor so hard if it were not for the ”artificial needs” created by ”commercialism” and ”materialism.” In reality, the opposite is true: the less the return on your labor, the harder the labor. It is much easier to acquire an automobile in New York City than a meal in the jungle. Without machines and technology, the task of mere survival is a terrible, mind-and-body-wrecking ordeal. In ”nature,” the struggle for food, clothing and shelter consumes all of a man's energy and spirit; it is a losing struggle-the winner is any flood, earthquake or swarm of locusts. (Consider the 500,000 bodies left in the wake of a single flood in Pakistan; they had been men who lived without technology.) To work only for bare necessities is a luxury that mankind cannot afford.
[Ibid., 148.]
See also ECOLOGY/ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT; ECONOMIC GROWTH; NEW LEFT; POLLUTION; SCIENCE; SOUL-BODY DICHOTOMY.
Teleological Measurement. In regard to the concepts pertaining to evaluation (”value,” ”emotion,” ”feeling,” ”desire,” etc.), the hierarchy involved is of a different kind and requires an entir;ely different type of measurement. It is a type applicable only to the psychological process of evaluation, and may be designated as ”teleological measurement. ”
Measurement is the identification of a relations.h.i.+p-a quant.i.tative relations.h.i.+p established by means of a standard that serves as a unit. Teleological measurement deals, not with cardinal, but with ordinal numbers-and the standard serves to establish a graded relations.h.i.+p of means to end.
For instance, a moral code is a system of teleological measurement which grades the choices and actions open to man, according to the degree to which they achieve or frustrate the code's standard of value. The standard is the end, to which man's actions are the means.
A moral code is a set of abstract principles; to practice it, an individual must translate it into the appropriate concretes-he must choose the particular goals and values which he is to pursue. This requires that he define his particular hierarchy of values, in the order of their importance, and that he act accordingly. Thus all his actions have to be guided by a process of teleological measurement. (The degree of uncertainty and contradictions in a man's hierarchy of values is the degree to which he will be unable to perform such measurements and will fail in his attempts at value calculations or at purposeful action.) Teleological measurement has to be performed in and against an enormous context: it consists of establis.h.i.+ng the relations.h.i.+p of a given choice to all the other possible choices and to one's hierarchy of values.
The simplest example of this process, which all men practice (with various degrees of precision and success), may be seen in the realm of material values-in the (implicit) principles that guide a man's spending of money. On any level of income, a man's money is a limited quant.i.ty; in spending it, he weighs the value of his purchase against the value of every other purchase open to him for the same amount of money, he weighs it against the hierarchy of all his other goals, desires and needs, then makes the purchase or not accordingly.
The same kind of measurement guides man's actions in the wider realm of moral or spiritual values. (By ”spiritual” I mean ”pertaining to consciousness.” I say ”wider” because it is man's hierarchy of values in this realm that determines his hierarchy of values in the material or economic realm.) But the currency or medium of exchange is different. In the spiritual realm, the currency-which exists in limited quant.i.ty and must be teleologically measured in the pursuit of any value-is time, i.e., one's life.
[ITOE, 42.].
See also CONSCIOUSNESS; LIFE; MEASUREMENT; MONEY; MORALITY; PRINCIPLES; STANDARD of VALUE; ULTIMATE VALUE; VALUES.
Teleology. See Goal-Directed Action.
Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a typically American holiday. In spite of its religious form (giving thanks to G.o.d for a good harvest), its essential, secular meaning is a celebration of successful production. It is a producers' holiday. The lavish meal is a symbol of the fact that abundant consumption is the result and reward of production. Abundance is (or was and ought to be) America's pride-just as it is the pride of American parents that their children need never know starvation.
[”Cas.h.i.+ng in on Hunger,” ARI,, III. 23, 1.]
See also AMERICA; CHRISTMAS; PRODUCTION; RELIGION.
Theme (Literary). The four essential attributes of a novel are: Theme-Plot-Characterization-Style.
These are attributes, not separable parts. They can be isolated conceptually for purposes of study, but one must always remember that they are interrelated and that a novel is their sum. (If it is a good novel, it is an indivisible sum.) [”Basic Principles of Literature,” RM, 57; pb 80.]
A theme is the summation of a novel's abstract meaning. For instance, the theme of Atlas Shrugged is: ”The role of the mind in man's existence.” The theme of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables is: ”The injustice of society toward its lower cla.s.ses.” The theme of Gone With the Wind is: ”The impact of the Civil War on Southern society.”
A theme may be specifically philosophical or it may be a narrower generalization. It may present a certain moral-philosophical position or a purely historical view, such as the portrayal of a certain society in a certain era. There are no rules or restrictions on the choice of a theme, provided it is communicable in the form of a novel. But if a novel has no discernible theme-if its events add up to nothing-it is a bad novel; its flaw is lack of integration.
Louis H. Sullivan's famous principle of architecture, ”Form follows function,” can be translated into: ”Form follows purpose.” The theme of a novel defines its purpose. The theme sets the writer's standard of selection, directing the innumerable choices he has to make and serving as the integrator of the novel.
Since a novel is a re-cr-eatiorr of reality, its theme has to be dramatized, i.e., presented in terms of action. Life is a process of action. The entire content of man's consciousness-thoughr, knowledge, ideas, values-has only one ultimate form of expression: in his actions; and only one ultimate purpose: to guide his actions. Since the theme of a novel is an idea about or pertaining to human existence, it is in terms of its effects on or expression in human actions that that idea has to be presented.
[Ibid., 58; pb 81.]
A cardinal principle of good fiction [is]: the theme and the plot of a novel must be integrated-as thoroughly integrated as mind and body or thought and action in a rational view of man.
The link between the theme and the events of a novel is an element which I call the plot-theme. It is the first step of the translation of an abstract theme into a story, without which the construction of a plot would be impossible. A ”plot-theme” is the central conflict or ”situation” of a story-a conflict in terms of action, corresponding to the theme and complex enough to create a purposeful progression of events.
The theme of a novel is the core of its abstract meaning-the plot-theme is the core of its events.
[Ibid., 63; pb 85.]
The theme of a novel can he conveyed only through the events of the plot, the events of the plot depend on the characterization of the men who enact them-and the characterization cannot be achieved except through the events of the plot, and the plot cannot be constructed without a theme.
This is the kind of integration required by the nature of a novel. And this is why a good novel is an indivisible sum: every scene, sequence and pa.s.sage of a good novel has to involve, contribute to and advance all three of its major attributes: theme, plot, characterization.
[Ibid., 74; pb 93.]
Those who may be interested in the chronological development of my thinking ... may observe the progression from a political theme in We the Living to a metaphysical theme in Atlas Shrugged.
[”Preface,” FNI, ii; pb viii.]
[We the Living] was published in 1936 and reissued in 1959. Its theme is: the individual against the state; the supreme value of a human life and the evil of the totalitarian state that claims the right to sacrifice it.
[FNI. 69; pb 60.]
[Anthem] was first published in England in 1938. Its theme is: the meaning of man's ego.
[Ibid., 73; pb 64.]
[The Fountainhead] was published in 1943. Its theme is: individualism versus collectivism, not in politics, but in man's soul; the psychological motivations and the basic premises that produce the character of an individualist or a collectivist.
[Ibid., 77; ph 68.]
[Atlas Shrugged] was published in 1957. Its theme is: the role of the mind in man's existence-and, as corollary, the demonstration of a new moral philosophy: the morality of rational self-interest.
[Ibid., 103; pb 88.]
See also ART; CHARACTERIZATION; INTEGRATION (MENTAL); LITERATURE; PLOT; PLOT THEME; SOUL-BODY DICHOTOMY; STYLE; SUBJECT (IN ART).
Theory-Practice Dichotomy. [Consider the catch phrase:] ”This may be good in theory, but it doesn't work in practice.” What is a theory? It is a set of abstract principles purporting to be either a correct description of reality or a set of guidelines for man's actions. Correspondence to reality is the standard of value by which one estimates a theory. If a theory is inapplicable to reality, by what standard can it be estimated as ”good”? If one were to accept that notion, it would mean: a. that the activity of man's mind is unrelated to reality; b. that the purpose of thinking is neither to acquire knowledge nor to guide man's actions. (The purpose of that catch phrase is to invalidate man's conceptual faculty.) [”Philosophical Detection,” PWNI, 17; pb 14.]