men and I think waiting for our camera for the live stream to get started so give me one minute and then we'll get started. As you are getting your seats, I will get us started tonight. My name is Justin Dyer. I am the director of the new Civitas Institute at the University of Texas. We are an institute on campus that studies the Constitution, liberty and markets. We're delighted for you to be here with us this evening. We're grateful to the Salem Center for Policy at the McComb School of Business for cosponsoring this event with us for Greg Salmiere and the Objectivism program in particular. Ein Rand and C.S. Lewis were born within seven years of each other at the turn of the 20th century and the events of the first quarter of the century deeply impacted their life in all sorts of different ways but the most obvious Rand of course living through the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. C.S. Lewis fighting in the trenches and being wounded in World War I. They both went on to careers as literary geniuses in some ways novelists, writers, scholars. Their books are still in print. It's a rare feat for an author in the middle of the 20th century to have books still in print. Both of them sell hundreds of thousands of copies each year still. Their ideas continue to impact our world and the idea for the event tonight came when we were thinking about and talking about Rand and Lewis both publishing major works in 1943. Rand's major success was The Fountainhead published that year and C.S. Lewis published a slim volume called The Abolition of Man and both of those books contain criticisms of modern politics, of the modern state, of modern culture, the way that it flattens and impoverishes human experience, the way that it hollows out the human soul and limits human potential and yet their differences run deep. And so we're delighted to have with us tonight your own Brooke and Michael Watson to share their perspectives on Rand and Lewis to hopefully illuminate their similarities but also their differences so that we can better understand these thinkers and how they view the world. Your own Brooke has a PhD in finance from the University of Texas at Austin. He's the chairman of the board of the Inran Institute bestselling author, podcaster, and entrepreneur. Michael Watson has a PhD in political theory from Princeton University. He's professor and executive director of the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics at Calvin University. He's the co-author of the book C.S. Lewis on politics and the natural law, which has sold dozens over its career. The format for tonight, I'm going to invite each of them to come up for 15 minutes and give an overview, your own giving an overview of fine Rand and Micah of C.S. Lewis, of their life, their works, their world view, the way that they understood this challenge, which is part of the title of the event of totalitarianism in the 20th century, which might not be exactly the right word or exactly the word that they would have used, but how they understood what was going on in the world and what the threats to liberty were. We'll then sit down after that and have a conversation back and forth and we promise we will try to end in time for everyone who wants to walk over to the LBJ Library afterward. There's another event at 7.30 where Carl Rove and George Will will be talking about the future of conservatism and so if you're interested in that event, I think just follow the crowd after this one and you'll be able to find it. Thank you for being here. I think we'll go alphabetical order your own if you don't mind kicking it off. Can you hear me? All right, we're live. So thank you. Thank you to the Savita Center and the Salem Center for inviting me for this event and generally I can't express how pleased I am to see both these centers exist and coming to being, to some extent I've been involved in conversations about the creation of these centers for years now and it's wonderful to now be here at an event. So to talk about Ayn Rand's view of the rise of totalitarianism in the 20th century and of course I think the relevance of it to today which I think is important not just 1943 but today, I think it's first important to understand her view of liberty and her view of freedom. I think the positive is more important primarily because we can talk about the rise of authoritarianism in the 20th century but the reality is the 99.9 percent of human history has been authoritarian. What's unique and what's special about the modern world, what is new about the modern world is liberty. Authoritarianism is just the state of man since the beginning whether it's tribes, kings, queens, councils, whatever the authority church, whatever the authority happened to be there have been authorities over us dictating our lives in one way or another and to one extreme or the other forever. Indeed life for almost the entire history of mankind has been short, brutish, you know horrible, I'm not going to quote the Hobbes but you know it's just being awful. What's unique about the modern world is how amazing it is I mean here we are in this auditorium talking, coming in from all kinds of places it's kind of cold outside not as cold as it is in Michigan we're amazingly comfortable we're live streaming this anybody anywhere in the world can watch I mean life is pretty damn good and that's what's really unique and that's what's really interesting and yes we have to deal with this threat that authoritarianism keeps raising its head and trying to do away with this but first I think we need to understand where did this liberty come from because it is the thing that is special and unique and to some extent you could argue modern, new or at least in its current form modern and new. So what made human success, human progress possible? Where does human progress come from? Where does the wealth, the life expectancy, the amazing spiritual values that we have today accessible to us where did all that come from? How did we go from a world in which pretty much for a hundred thousand years nothing changed to a world in which we expect now progress, we expect now improvement, we expect now to be more free maybe not everybody out there in the world but some of us the idea of more freedom is an idea that at least has some popularity in the world. Freedom was a foreign concept in the past I mean I like that I mean this is kind of a joke but it's true everybody watch Braveheart the movie I mean it's like a favorite everybody watches Braveheart right and the Scots they yell at some point in the movie they lift their skirts and then they yell freedom right they march in a battle yelling freedom what did they mean by freedom is it the freedom that we today talk about freedom from coercion and government and intervention no it's we want to be ruled by a Scottish king not a British one a little racist but that's that's about it there's no conception of freedom in the 15th or 14th or 13th century when they were doing this this is all a modern conception or at least post-Greece post-Roman Republic a modern conception so what does Iron Man think this freedom and human success what makes that possible and if you eat the fountain head which I hope everybody in this room has and if you haven't I hope that at least we say a few things that I'll encourage you to read that and that'll be I'll consider that a success if if I can do that I mean she really to a logic set gives the answer in the fountain it she gives the answer in the character of Howard Rock Howard Rock is the kind of man who moves civilization forward indeed how did we get to where we are today we got to where we are today by rejecting the mysticism of the past the traditions of the past the idea that an authority should dictate our lives to us that existed in the past we got to the point where we are today because of individuals rejecting that standing for something new presenting an alternative moving things forward we got to where we are today because they stood up and created what didn't exist shattering convention shattering tradition and marching forward you know a big conflict in the fountain head is between this architect who's designing something new based on his mind based on his values based on his ideas and the conventional view of architecture of how you should build which is steeped in the past which is steeped in tradition which will not accept the new the innovative the progressive and indeed throughout history civilization is advanced because of men like Howard Rock who stood up and did new things and said things that were very very controversial and what did we typically do to those people well what the masses tried to do to Howard Rock in the in the book we condemn them we attack them we often kill them and then you know their achievements are just immersed into our new traditions that we move on and we forget about the hero who actually created it who stood up against the authorities in order to bring it forward it's that view of man as capable as heroic as capable of setting his own life creating his own mind his own soul choosing his own values by the use of his own mind by the use of reason that I think we have a modern world and we have the freedoms that we have I mean the world as we know it today I think is a consequence of fundamentally two ideas and when I say I I think I represent I think I'm speaking for Iran although I hate the the pretense of speaking for but I think two ideas are basically the source of the modern world and the two are the efficacy of reason and the sanctity of the individual it's the fact that and this is this comes out historically starting in the Renaissance but really in the Enlightenment the idea of knowledge human knowledge is accessible to every one of us it's accessible because we have senses and because we have a mind because we have the capacity to reason and as a consequence of the fact that we can reason we can make our own choices we can choose our own values we can choose our path in life and this is again it's hard for a 21st century audience to remember to realize this but this is a revolution because before that you didn't have any choice about many things in life you didn't choose who to marry you didn't choose what profession you went you certainly didn't choose your political leader some authority dictated all of those where there was family where there was a church or where there was a state they dictated your choices for you and suddenly there was an awakening wait a minute if I have reason if I have the capacity to understand the world I have a capacity to choose my own values to choose my own path to discover my values for myself what do I need these authorities for and it's no accident that out of the Enlightenment we get all kinds of choices not just political but we get the ability to choose our own spouse to to choose our own profession another just side story do you know why Leonardo da Vinci gotta be Leonardo da Vinci why didn't he become a notary like his father because that's what you did you did what your father did there was no choices you didn't get to choose your profession anybody you know why Leonardo da Vinci could actually be an artist and an engineer and a you know a renaissance man because he was a bastard absolutely because he was a bastard and therefore couldn't enter the guild and therefore was free to pursue his life to pursue his values to pursue his choices free of a tradition that dictated only one path for him which was to become a notary if he had been a legal kid we would have never had the the the the wonder that is Leonardo da Vinci so it is a capacity to reason which liberates us from those authorities it's a capacity that says that you can make choices for yourself and then it's you making choices so implicit in that is the fact that you matter that you as an individual matter you're not just a cog in a collective you're not just part of a group you're not there just to do what the collective determines for you to do and you see a rise of individualism at the same time as you see a rise in the acceptance of the idea that reason is our means of knowing the world and I think those two ideas um politically culminate in the declaration of independence politically culminate in the creation of America a land of the free a land that leaves individuals free to use their mind their own mind use their own judgment in pursuit of their own chosen values where those values are not dictated to you from above where your life is not determined by an authority outside of you and this is an historical achievement I think the greatest political document ever written in all of history because it recognizes the sanctity of the individual as a moral agent in pursuit of his own happiness so it's these ideas reason and individualism the forand represent that the the march towards the the the the intellectual evolution towards liberty and freedom and ideas of liberty and freedom that again culminates I think in the creation of this great country and I think from that perspective the rise of authoritarianism seems always to be a kind of return to those pre-enlightenment ideas the rise of authoritarianism is always always a hockening backwards to some kind of mystical explanation for the world and a rejection of reason you know you see it right now you know why and and I know people have lots of explanations for this but if you listen to Putin and and and in terms of why he explains his invasion of Ukraine what you get is a whole mushy thing about Russia and the greatness of Russia and this thing called Russia and the spiritual thing of Russia and the unity of the Russian people and and and wanting to fulfill some mystical destiny that is Russia I mean there might be some geopolitical aspects of NATO whatever but that's not how he explains it that's not how he motivates the Russian people to go to war it's an explanation about some other worldly cause that is driving his explanation you know the the whether it's the Nazis or the communists they always have to create a mythology a mythology that is not of this world a mythology that says you as an individual don't matter what matters is the Russian spirit what matters is the Aryan race what matters is the proletarian which I can't point to I can't find that and it's a it's a collective it's never an individual you as an individual don't matter your life is subservient to this and should be sacrificed for their sake so authoritarianism comes together with a rise in emotionalism with a rejection of reason and a rejection of the individual and individualism the left with its subjectivism and rejection of any objective reality or any objective values what is it left with if you reject objective values if you reject reality what's left well emotion all that's left is emotion to guide you emotion is not a particularly good guide for action in life if you don't believe me just try it for just a few days you'll get into lots of trouble and you'll see emotion if you live your life based on emotion what ultimately emotion one emotion will dominate all others and that is fear because you will fail you will fail without reason failure is the consequence and when you're afraid you look for others you look for safety you look for collective to latch on you look and you can see this in the I think the modern in much of the modern left is so driven by fear more than anything else and by this latching on to groups and and huddling together and and packs almost like packs of animals you know the white claims that truth is revealed that it's not discovered but revealed comes from revelation and again is an attack on reason and there too if you can discover values and I don't think they actually are revealed from anywhere you're left again with emotion and again I think you see more and more on the way you see a shift towards more and more collectivism as a consequence and less and less trust in the individual because we have abandoned the thing the reason to trust the individual which is what reason his ability to think his ability to choose his own path his ability his ability to craft his own his own life so authoritarianism is always a rejection of these two and it always bubbles up to the surface when there's significant intellectual pressure against reason and against individuals individualism you know for for a hundred years or over a hundred years from the Napoleonic wars until World War one in which C.S. Lewis got injured there was relative peace in Europe one of the most peaceful errors in human history a period of relative freedom liberty capitalism and a period that was a manifestation of the enlightenment that just had preceded it a period of confidence a period of viewed human beings as capable of competent as worthy of happiness worthy of life a period in which success was expected a period in which progress was achieved from decade to decade to decade but it's same period in which philosophers undermined exactly these two concepts whether it's Kant's Hegel Schopenhauer Marx the whole string of them constantly attacking the notions of reason and the value of the individual constantly attacking the idea that individuals had the capacity to discover their own values to pursue their own values discover those values using reason using rationality constantly undermining those that I think imploded with World War one I think those ideas undermine and as a consequence you saw rising nationalism and you know we don't need to get into the whole causes of World War one but here's a horrific war a war one of the dumbest wars ever all wars are dumb but this one is I think has a special place in history millions and millions and millions died for their country for their nation not knowing why not knowing really what what value they were fighting for what how it contributed to their lives just one of the greatest tragedies in history and in many ways you know changed people's people's lives out of this war came not only ultimately fascism but also communism so when rejects authoritarianism she rejects totalitarianism she rejects all forms of coercion and authority authority with a power to enforce because ultimately she believes the individual is capable and morally justified in living their own life for themselves for their own happiness in pursuit of their own values using their own mind what we're seeing today in america is again and I think this is where I think the fear of authoritarianism comes from is again we've seen over the last few decades a rejection an ongoing attack on the concept of reason individualism a rise in collectivism a rise in emotionalism and all of those are leading us to authoritarian tendencies we slowly over a hundred years in the world of business in the world of markets seen more and more and more and more and more and more regulations and why why do we regulate businessmen why do we regulate businessmen somebody said fear we regulate businesses because of fear we regulate businesses businessmen because we don't think they're completely rational we regulate businessmen because we're afraid of what they might do even though if you actually play it out based on kind of market principles yeah there'll always be some crooks but basically businessmen don't do you know my favorite one is you walk into any elevator I think even in Texas and there's a little diploma on the elevator saying that a government inspector is inspected in the elevator and it won't fall and kill you because we know that the best way to make money is to kill your customers right I mean you laugh but all regulations are based on that idea on the idea that businessmen will kill their customers because that's the way to make money we don't trust their own reasoning we don't trust their own mind we don't trust their own values to keep us safe we need a government bureaucrat to do it for us again bureaucrat who you have to question their own incentives but that's a whole different question so the solution to the rise of authoritarianism is a rediscovery and we have to do this constantly because I think this is what liberty requires a rediscovery of those two ideas the idea of reason and the idea of individualism the idea that we as human beings have the capacity and the ability to live our lives based on our chosen values based on our mind based on our ability to reason based on our ability to understand the world and live in accordance with it and and you know every time those are dismissed stomped upon ridiculed that is fertile ground for the rise of somebody to tell you well I know how you should live I know where the values come from I know what values you should have and hey you're probably too irresponsible or too dumb or too what fill in the blank to do it yourself so let me help you a little bit you know the you know there's this book a few years ago called nudge right I'm not gonna force I'm gonna nudge you but we know what nudges turn into pushes and turn into coercion very very quickly so I am going to dictate what your values are in whatever realm I think is important and I unfortunately I see that trend on both sides of the political aisle both sides of the so-called spectrum or that doesn't seem like a spectrum these days I see the tendency of again relying on authorities relying on somebody else to dictate your life for you from all sides and until we discover the the the value of reason individualism we are doomed to continue in that path thank you we go how's that I'll just mention very quickly of the my co-author is also in the room tonight and that is that is Justin and and we did I think each get a Cambridge University Press royalty check last month and I took my family out to Panera so I don't that's not nothing thanks to the Civitas Institute and the Salem Center for contributing to the intellectual diversity here in the blue hearts of red Texas and at one of our country's flagship public universities thank you Ron for getting us up to a rollicking good start it is safe to say it see us Lewis is not known first of all for his treatment of totalitarianism Lewis yes the Christian apologist Lewis the writer of children's stories Lewis the science fiction fantasy author Lewis the literary critic Lewis the Oxford Dawn and then chair of medieval and Renaissance literature at Cambridge but in the almost 60 years since he passed away on November 22nd 1963 we've come to learn more and more about Lewis's significant interest in and concerns about politics this contradicts the conventional wisdom about Lewis which was that he disdained and avoided politics and yet we know that in every chapter of his biography and in several of his writings and throughout his personal correspondence politics is at the very least near the surface and often front and center with with his concerns one can find evidence for the conventional view not least from Lewis himself on November 16th 1963 he writes back to a mrs. Frank Jones noting that quote our papers at the moment are filled with nothing but politics a subject in which i cannot take any great interest but then he goes on to say it is an absolute certainty that we shall soon have a labor government within a few months with all the regimentation austerity and meddling which they so enjoy perhaps however it will not be so bad this time for Sir Stafford Cripps the late nursery governess of England is dead so perhaps he did take some interest Lewis was also steeped in the classical thinkers particularly Plato and Aristotle and so he was interested in justice and injustice one classic definition of justice is to give each their due and injustice is the denial of the same those themes run throughout Lewis's works the classical definition or at least one of tyranny is to rule for one's private interest as opposed to the interest of the whole we can think then of tyranny as injustice plus political power and then there's totalitarianism one definition here is a system of government in which the state aspires to control all aspects of life such that the public private distinction is obliterated we can think then of totalitarianism as injustice plus political power plus the technical means to apply that power universally and effectively Lewis delivered the lectures that later became the abolition of man and wrote the fictional version of abolition that hideous strength primarily worried about a particular kind of totalitarianism what he called scientocracy in a letter to Chicago journalists written in Lewis acknowledged that tyranny comes in different forms at different times he'd very much agree that this has always been with us ought we to be surprised at the approach of scientocracy in every age those who wish to be our masters if they have any sense secure our obedience by offering deliverance from our dominant fear when we fear wizards the medicine man can rule the whole tribe when we fear a stronger tribe our best warrior becomes king when all the world fears hell the church becomes a theocracy give up your freedom and I will make you say is age after age the terrible offer in England the omnipotent welfare state has triumphed because it promised to free us from the fear of poverty it is crucial to note that Lewis believed the omnipotent welfare state will tackle real problems real needs that demand responses he says we have on the one hand a desperate need hunger sickness and the dread of war he writes this in his essay is progress possible we have on the other hand the conception of something that might meet it omnicompetent global technocracy say say that 10 times fast omnicompetent global technocracy are these not the ideal opportunity for enslavement whereas the classical liberal understanding of politics is that we authorize or empower the state through our consent believing it will protect our rights Lewis feared the modern state reports to do us good or make us good we are less their subjects than their wards pupils or domestic animals he writes there is nothing left of which we can say to them mind your own business our whole lives are their business what kept Lewis up at night was the combination of the tools of the omnicompetent global technocracy with how modernity beginning primarily for Lewis with Rousseau has undermined the very conditions by which people can believe in a genuine and objective moral reality Lewis wrote about Rousseau and other seminal thinkers in his Oxford history of English language in 16th century for the ancient thinkers Lewis wrote pagan Jewish Christian Stoic the chief goal of philosophy and politics was to determine what ultimate reality was and what it demanded of human beings and then educate raise human beings so as to align with that moral reality as much as possible with Rousseau we have a rejection not only of natural law but of a fixed human nature entirely such that the nature of philosophy changes from discovery of and adaptation to reality to the endless possibilities of creation and innovation nature no longer provides the guide but is itself the object of our power Rousseau says about his miraculous legislature in his social contract this legislature must feel capable of changing human nature certain it is in the long run Rousseau writes in his political economy peoples are what governments make them be peoples are what governments make them be what happens Lewis worried when those governments move first from protecting our rights to being charged with improving our lives and then seeing it as their mandate to improve us ourselves to improve on human nature what happens when the government is no longer a creature of we the people but we the people are subject to be crafted shaped and molded by our governments Lewis wrote abolition not to persuade readers of the truth of Christianity nor even theism nor even the superiority of western civilization he would hardly have chosen the word dow to refer to morality if that was what he was up to his question is this is there a moral reality woven into the fabric of the universe such that we can discover what is true about right and wrong and accordingly or is morality something malleable a tool for the powerful or part of an unguided evolution or the flow of history with a capital H something we need not discover but now that we have come of age something we can create and shape for ourselves from Antigone's challenge to Creon to the serpent and Genesis asking did God really say from Plato's battle with a sophist to Pilate's what is truth from Rousseau's reimagined nature less state of nature to the truths that we hold to be self-evident to Nietzsche's creative supermen and today's transhumanists this is arguably the question that lies beneath all our disputes and controversies and one does not have to be a Christian or even a theist nor dismiss Lewis as a mystic in order to find his argument sound the prominent British philosopher and atheist John Gray finds abolition to be a trenchant and persuasive book it is striking that Lewis is not appealed to divine revelation nor religious scripture to ground his arguments abolition addresses this perennial and paramount question about more reality and in doing so takes the side of Antigone and Plato and the Bible and Confucius and opposes for Semicus Rousseau Nietzsche BF Skinner other modern skeptics and current transhumanists like Rick Hertzwell where as many of Lewis's works described and defend the divine author of the moral law in both special and general revelation abolition concerns itself only with the reality of the moral law itself and the stark alternatives to a belief in objective morality and we can't possibly rehearse Lewis's treatment here but I want to highlight three ideas that might provoke some and some contrasts between the two provocative thinkers first an education property human beings depends on the nature of those human beings and human beings are both reasoning and affective or feeling creatures but while both are necessary reason should be in the driver's seat Lewis understood reason to be more than mere calculation insofar as he accepted the platonic understanding of a human being as comprised of reason emotion and appetites the head the heart and the stomach and the virtues that correspond to those different aspects of ourselves wisdom for the head courage for the heart moderation for the desires of the stomach when these are in their proper order we have the fourth cardinal virtue which is justice the point of education is to correctly align our emotions such that they correspond rightly to this or that value or this or that reality contra hobs and hume reason is not purely instrumental hobs is wrong to say that thoughts are to the desires as scouts and spies to range abroad and find the way to the things desired hume is wrong to say reason is and not only to be the slave of the passions and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them hobs and hume turn the human being upside down such that reason can only serve our appetites our stomachs are in charge and our hearts and heads follow in the first chapter of abolition Lewis is critical of the elementary school books he is considering because they eviscerate the proper place of emotions and instrumentalize the guiding role of reason this leads to truncating young people who will be ripe for any kind of sentimental propaganda that can feed the genuine need they have been denied we call Lewis says that totalitarian regimes always attempt to provide some real genuine good that has been neglected second what reason reveals to us is a reality that does not depend on us for its truth that is just to say that Lewis and abolition is staking a claim for a sort of moral realism but doing so in an interesting way he explicitly avoids speculating as to how it has come about that the universe really is the way it is and while we know from his other works he has a theistic indeed christian explanation he aims here for if you'll forgive the phrase a sort of overlapping consensus about what the reality of moral truth is and the sort of creatures that we are meant to be thus Lewis and Rand can both oppose omnicompetent government while strongly disagreeing on two matters important matters first the underlying explanation for why totalitarianism is wrong is it wrong because it tramples on the rights of truly remarkable individuals who are guided by rational egoism or is it wrong because it vitiates the good of creatures made in God's image creatures the apostle Paul quoted approvingly by that classical liberal John Locke describes as God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do a second important matter is what exactly human flourishing looks like Lewis and Rand each champion an understanding of freedom such that they robustly criticize overactive governments but their conception of what genuine freedom looks like could hardly be more different Lewis for example strongly agreed with a Scottish poet and preacher George McDonald who quipped the one principle of hell is I am my own Rand I suspect would strongly object to this but disagreement on these in fairness very important matters doesn't preclude agreement on opposing totalitarianism in word indeed after all the enemy of my enemy is I can't quite say friend given Rand's marginalia of Lewis's book although maybe now the bastard come as a compliment but it's not my it's not the you know the enemy of my enemy is my friend maybe the enemy of my enemy is my friend of me as the kids say these days finally as I wrap up Lewis's work in abolition and elsewhere continues to strike a chord and I suspect this is part of Rand's enduring prominence well because technology has advanced far enough to render questions about re-engineering human nature practical and not merely hypothetical while the debate about the relationship between morality and human nature stretches back to Antigone and before the means to accomplish the abolition of men and women seems closer to reality than they have ever been before whereas the scientific experiments Lewis describes in abolition and its fictional counterpart that he has strength had a definite science fictiony feel to them in the 1940s the modern attempts to transfer or upload consciousness significantly delay or even eradicate death in bioengineer coming generations no longer feel so far off in the future if that's the case then we do well to continue to have conversations like this and revisit these two very different but quite incisive thinkers thanks well that was great enjoyed that we'll sit down now for a conversation and I thought we could try to hone in on some of the differences between Rand and Lewis and Micah you had mentioned Rand's marginalia notes so if you haven't seen these they are now published but she kept notes on the books that she read and she had a copy of the abolition of man in her library and she wrote notes in the margins and one of those notes she makes in the margins she calls Lewis a quote cheap awful miserable touchy social metaphysical mediocrity and so the question as she's reading Lewis and calling him this and particularly the social metaphysical aspect of his mediocrity was random materialist and in her account of reason and what reason discovers about the world is there a place for metaphysics no she's not a materialist she you know that the reality is that we have consciousness and consciousness could not be just reduced to some you know intersection of atoms we have free will she she is a big defender of the idea of free will can they be metaphysics it I have a feeling we define metaphysics differently yes of course there's metaphysics she writes about metaphysics but for her metaphysics is this is the understanding of reality is what is reality metaphysics has no you know it would undermine metaphysics for her to bring up anything related to mysticism or to some kind of spiritual realm that was outside of reality that was separate from reality separate from human consciousness our spirit is our consciousness so the you know man has a soul but her whole conception of soul is a conception of of you know the values and the ideas and the thoughts that I have for for Rand just to kind of off of the the idea of I man has the capacity to create his own soul by the choices of the values that he makes but choice is crucial choice is the idea of will here so a good man builds his own soul by the choices of the values by the choices he makes in in his own life and and that's that's kind of the character of how it works it's a self-made man not self-made just in a sense of material right we all understand self-made man is the entrepreneur he makes stuff but for work self-made man is the spiritual he's made himself into what he is that's what morality is it's to make yourself into this you know a rational value that that walk I think exemplifies in the Fountainhead like a similar question from the margin alley notes Lewis at one point in abolition he criticizes Francis Bacon and the science modern scientific method and he compares it to magic that there you have the two things that grow up together in the sixteenth century science and magic and science turned out to work magic didn't but it's very similar he thinks in all sorts of ways and Rand writes so bacon is a magician but Christ performing miracles is of course a spectacle of pure rational knowledge yeah exclamation point exclamation point so question about this defensive reason by Lewis in abolition in taking in context of the rest of his works how much are Lewis's religious views really the thing that's driving his argument in what sense as a believer in things unseen believer in revelation believer in tradition in what sense is he really devoted to reason well I think he would say that that that those things are completely consistent with with reason as a capacity that we have he just thinks that what we'll discover with that reason has been authored by something other than ourselves right that we discover about ourselves and I mean Christianity I think is going to is going to bring together in a way that we can't fully understand the idea that there's something out there and there's reality here like in the platonic sense of the forms being in some other place and there's us for for Lewis as the Christian there's there is God of course who authors nature and creation but then human beings are made in God's image which kind of blurs those those boundaries of two different places and of course the central message of Christianity is that God himself comes down and becomes human with regard to you know how much does he rely on reason he does believe that that what part of what makes us human part of our being made in that Imago day is able to think about the good and the commonality is that the choices we make will contribute to the sort of person that we are but that there are better and worse paths to take there that aren't merely up to us so you know that the the Texas undergrad who comes here and works very hard to get his degree and decides to spend his life living in his mom's basement eating Cheetos and drinking Mountain Dew and playing Xbox the rest of his life is not as worthy a life reason what could whether you do that from from Christian starting points or other starting points you could kind of figure out that someone who takes their Texas education and does something a little bit more become as an architect for example right but that's a that's a a better kind of life that reason could could give us that so I I think his Christian faith does ground everything he does he said at one point I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen not only because I see it but by it I see everything else but his arguments he would he explicitly denied he was relying on his faith and making these claims I think they're at work there but as we know there are atheists and agnostics and people from other faiths who have read abolition and thought okay I don't buy all this spiritual stuff that Lewis writes about in his other works but this makes sense right which from the Christian point of view can work because even those who don't might not acknowledge God as the author of their natures still believe that that nature is operative and and and people can come to true conclusions yeah I mean I I think what he says about bacon is some of the more I find some of the more disturbing passages in in the book partially because he equates magic and does a strong power between magic and science which I think is absurd but you know bacon is the father of modern science in many respects father of modern philosophy of science modern science you know the technology we have around the quality of life we have around us the the the the stand of living none of this would exist without the bacons of the world and and to view science as just as something that or knowledge more broadly something that just satisfies appetites satisfies you know earthly appetites is again something I think Rand is is remember these this margin alias for herself right she's she's but I can completely get it because here we have this amazing industrial society there's amazing scientific society and and bacon is partially responsible for this and certainly knowledge and science is responsible for this and you can't just say this just for some you know low appetites no this is this makes human life possible in the way that we live it it it makes us live longer it allows us to enjoy our lives more it allows us to pursue all the different types of values that that we have chosen to pursue you know science is this major human achievement that that makes human life possible and he is um belittling it or or condemning it in some way belittling is probably the wrong word but condemning it in some way certainly and and associating with appetites or you know sciences either you know there's this false dichotomy sciences either uh for good knowledge is either for a good in and of itself for for contemplation or whatever or for the appetites but either one of those is is right and the whole conception of appetites I think is wrong I mean um this again is is where the differences are right ran ran rejects the idea that we're driven by appetites I think yeah there we have not only a difference perhaps but a difference in interpretation louis does not think that he is attacking science he's attacking science conceived of as only man's being able to take over the realm of nature um and his argument there is what science does is it it can push back the boundaries of nature but what it often does is equip some men to do things to other men and often that'll be good things penicillin fantastic yeah anthrax not so much right so uh the atomic bomb and he has these examples the radio podcasting the good things but then propaganda also the same meat so science is not just all advanced although I think he would if we pressed him he were here he would acknowledge it's it's done a lot of good um so I don't think it's all appetite that the main point of his book here is is it so long as you are you keep in mind the human good and science is is pushing towards that then that could be really great the danger is what happens when you put the human being human nature itself on the table what's left looking through the microscope if if are if the goods and if if a moral realism isn't guiding the hand of where these experiments are going well but but the the the the danger in the evil here is not science the danger in the evil here are bad people and and bad intentions and those have to be combated that is the science is fantastic the science is good and and and bacon for doing what he does in bringing us that science and acknowledging the the power the power for good of science is a good guy not a bad guy in that context so yes condemn the the authoritarians again it gets into politics of teritarians use science or the evil people who use science uh for destruction uh but that is not a condemnation of science science in and of itself is advancing human life and and again if if we measure the evils the the bad versus the good um you know it's not even close if we're from science morality and thinking about one parallel that you find in both writings but I I suspect meaning very different things is about the role of self-interest and so I I'd I'd be interested to hear a basic overview of objectivist ethics and the role of self-interest and as as much as we can do a short overview and and then Mike I invite you to respond by thinking about it from this line that lewis has at one point to think it's in screw tape when he says that god is at heart a hedonist you know he puts this in in the mouths of of one of the devils in the in the book but the idea is that um there is maybe a kind of self-interest rightly understood in both thinkers but I suspect a very different in where they take things yes I I suspect so so for rand morality is a guide to action and it's a guide to to your values the guide to action it's a set of principles to guide your life in pursuit of your flourishing as a human being your success as a human being so it's centered on self others and and the virtue of justice people getting what they deserve uh which you would accept that definition is a is the way in which we relate to other people but morality is focused on what you do with yourself right it's it's about how you live your life what values you pursue for you and how do you discover those values you discover them as a scientist discover science so you look out you you examine your human nature what is human nature about you examine the world out there and you choose those values that lead to success given your nature that lead to your success in reality as it is out there uh so she is uh she is an egoist in morality or or you know because the purpose of your life is your own happiness your own flourishing your own success your own uh and other people are important for that happiness and flourishing so she's not an egoist or interested advocate in a sense of go to the desert islanded by yourself which is a caricature that's oven made of her philosophy but it's it's absurd and all of her novels suggest strong social interaction between people strong bonds between people and the value of that social interaction both as traders in in in the material goods that's how we gain up prosperity but also traders and spiritual goods in in friendship in love in in in art and in music so Rand is an advocate she has a book called the virtue of selfishness selfishness as the pursuit of your self-interest how do you pursue your self-interest by your nature what is your nature as a rational being you the only way to pursue your your self-interest is by using your mind it's by being rational every value that we have in the world is ultimately a product of human rationality ultimately a product of human reason that is the ultimate value that we strive to get a boil down on Rand's morality into one word which I don't recommend generally but one word it's think right think on how to solve the problem of existence right we're not programmed to know how to survive we're not programmed to know how to hunt and how to do agriculture how to how to carve uh michael angeles david we have to figure all that out we have to use our reason use our mind to figure that out uh so this idea of we're real self-interest playing in morale so there's a there is if you read through the christian scriptures uh you will see calls for suffering for sacrifice take up your cross and follow me and there are certain I mean that's in there and there are parts of the christian tradition that have made that an enormous influence and um and I think I understand why Lewis in a sermon he gave called the weight of glory um and it's if you wanted to say I want to read 10 pages of the best of Lewis that's what I that's where I would send you um acknowledges those things uh but says if you look at what Jesus says in the new testament you're going to endure those things but you're going to be incredibly rewarded right you you take the last see the first shall become a last and last and first which appeals to our own self-interest now our own self-interest happens to be from Lewis's point of view the christian point of view integrally wrapped up with others so love your neighbor as yourself implies you have to love yourself right that is there but then that should also be motivating you to love your neighbor and then there's the the the vertical element of that with with God as well so he he does say that that it so it's hard to get in the mindset of another whole approach to life but if you're outside the christian mindset and you're trying to what do these christians think we actually do believe there is this afterlife well things would be really good and and that's if we do have to kind of suffer or sacrifice some things here the the promise of the new testament is you'll be rewarded many times over and it's not a mercenary here's a hundred bucks it's a it's the reward that comes with being a sort of certain sort of person so it's the reward that marriage gives you of having a marriage with this other person not that you inherit whatever money your spouse has is the reward of a pianist of learning how to play beautifully not that they get a salary and so the idea of the the pie in the sky idea from the for the christian is a real thing and so for Lewis was a real thing so I actually think the self-interest there self-interest rightly understood if there's any Tocqueville fans here would would combine the individual as well as as the neighbor that christianity tries to do both those things we have mentioned the fall much that's what makes it really hard and that'd be a difference and Rand is you know doesn't doesn't have that aspect but that's at least on this side of eternity would be the chief stomach but I mean a fundamental difference there I I mean there are lots of differences but one of the differences is that that Rand's reward for virtue is here and there's no suffering and there's no sacrifice of suffering sacrifice again props understood because people people use sacrifice in a kinds of way but sacrifice that self-sacrifice giving something up with no return with nothing in return she rejects that as a model as as bad because it's it's bad for your ability to to benefit from virtue right now today and the same with sacrifice and suffering I mean again one of the one of the parts and maybe maybe a misinterpreting it again but one of the parts in the in the in the book and I've only read the one book from CS Lewis I'm limited to that I've only read the fountain head so we're good yeah there we go but it is is the the part where he says something like you know you know if we had to train you know for training children in a universal model of virtue sacrifice for the state you know sacrifice for your country that you know that's that's uh you know dying for the country isn't that a beautiful amazing thing and shivers go down you know because I was trained that way my my country I grew up in Israel that's how they trained us I mean we were trained to to to think and live and pursue everything in aim of just a grenade I just want the grenade to come so I can jump on it be a hero for my people and and that notion of sacrificing yourself for the state as being this this elevated virtue I find just horrific I mean it's one of the first thing I rejected when I read rant and and she freed me from that I think because why why I mean if it's a good state if it's a good country if if there's if you know for fighting for good cause and there's something justifiable there and and and and my my my fighting is going to lead to something positive and and there's real real positive potential outcome but just to die for the state again why and again this is in the context of not having an afterlife right if there's an afterlife uh then uh then you can rewrite all this as we written but I think we can only deal with what we know exists we have two questions I want to ask to take us into American politics and that's going to be a kind of on ramp to the next event for those of you here going over and we'll wrap this up here shortly but both of these authors both Lewis and Rand have interesting connections to William F. Buckley and National Review Magazine and so on Rand on on the Rand side of the equation William F. Buckley was at least partly responsible maybe wholly responsible for ostracizing Rand from the conservative movement in the last half of the 20th century and wouldn't publish her a national review magazine and so a question about that maybe a two-fold question what was so objectionable about Rand's views that Buckley treated her as though she were in the John Burge society and what relationship exists between Rand and objectivism and the broader conservative movement how do those two things relate you know so I mean what what the way he did it the way he in a sense uh kicked her out of the conservative movement not that she was part of the movement necessarily but but there was some uh affiliated writing there was some collaborations going on was it with the review of Adler Shrug that was published in 1950 probably 58 um and there was just a horrific review though really the the worst review Adler Shrug it forgot was from the national review um and uh and it's it's it's I think after that review it wasn't just that they wouldn't publish Rand it was she didn't want to have anything to do with with the national review of William F. Buckley uh so there was a clear split of ways and I think Buckley engineered that he wanted that why because of atheism I think that was a big part of it um I I think it was so it was uh just the the whole morality is conveyed in Adler Shrug you haven't read Adler Shrug yet but maybe but you know the whole the whole sense of that book I think uh offended um offended Buckley and and he saw it as a threat I think he saw it as a threat within the conservative movement to present those ideas so it really is a philosophy I think he rejected it because of the philosophy now she it's not that she wasn't then involved I mean she was somewhat involved in the Goldwater campaign she had a number of correspondence in 1964 with Barry Goldwater but Barry Goldwater was really the last political candidate she she had any affinity to and she was very critical of Goldwater but she viewed him as the best of of of the conservatives she viewed him as the best because he was relative to everybody else relatively unapologetic about capitalism and his defensive capitalism and tough on the Soviet Union at the time in ways that others were were selling out uh she condemned him because she thought because of his that he based his defendant capitalism on religion so she she condemned that and I think post Goldwater who relationship with an attitude towards the conservative movement deteriorated she was very opposed to Ronald Reagan um abortion became a much bigger issue for her in the 1970s uh so she was a big supporter of Roe vs Wade and and she was a big opponent of of Reagan over the issue of abortion but generally she feared the mingling of religion and politics she saw the majority the Ronald Reagan bringing in the majority into the republican party as a religious takeover the republican party and she feared that I think looking back she she was right to fear it you know I think religion and politics have become much more much more immersed within the republican party since then uh but so and she she did she has a you can see it on YouTube it's a it's a it's a great little video I encourage everybody to watch it um where she basically you know she talks about why uh she thinks conservatism is a dead end why it it it cannot be successful it cannot revive America uh and it can never be a defense a proper defense of capitalism so uh she I think in more in the 70s than the 60s became a uh a real critic of conservatism and it and kind of the the the introduction of religion into politics in the way it was introduced in the 1970s the connection here with Lewis is that at the turn of the century the last century national review put together a list of the top 100 books of the 20th century top 20 whatever it was and Lewis the abolition of man ends up as number seven on the list and so the editors of national review pick the abolition of man as the seventh best book in the 20th century according to their calculation and there's a odd question here which is why would a book written in the 1940s by an English professor at Oxford given as a series of lectures at the University of Durham on how we teach English language to high school students how does that end up being one of the best books on American politics you didn't yeah so you can you can now know that he didn't tell us these questions in advance I think that what abolition does is it a lot of a lot of defenses of natural law and a lot of people will see the American experiment in part based on natural rights and natural law attempt to or act as if natural law is the thing that has to be defended and it's up on the dock and we'll have a trial and we'll see if it survives the charges or not and what abolition does it turns the tables and it says all right let's let's say that that this isn't right what are the alternatives to a belief in objective morality if you're going to go with some other approach besides a morality that is that that we discovered that is real what does that look like and so it's it's an offensive book in that sense and in if you look at some of the people that have found it meaningful from across the spectrum we have the number of different philosophers of different religious and non-religious backgrounds there's something about that that there's that Lewis here is trying to make the case that you start with a morality that is part of the the furniture of our existence in a similar way to the math is a is part of our existence and and that is going to be a bedrock that can speak against authoritarianism on the right and we've seen more of that of late with people who say whatever needs to get done let's do that or they'll do it to us which is a rejection of moral reality in my own view it's hard to get you know preachy as well as uh excesses on the left um so I don't know that's what national reviewist thing would that be my answer as to what this book does is it says um it puts the alternatives on trial and if you read through that I think yeah maybe I need those aim here is think is guess to say maybe I need to give this moral reality um maybe or so didn't have it quite right I mean to go back to that and there we're gonna have these great debates with with randians and louisians about what that moral reality looks like but that's on a different side than a sort of will to power there is no moral reality we created ourselves um and then just see what happens so it's a it's a it's a boundary um authoring book I think what's a good place to stop in the the invitation for continued discussions about this is important ideas we're grateful that you chose to spend part of your evening with us tonight and we're grateful that you both came out to talk about this thanks mike and your own thank you


Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Fires in the Amazon are continuing to rage, with an 84% increase in the number of fires recorded this year as compared to the same period last year. Brazil's president here, Bolsonaro, has given a variety of reasons for this increase, going from climactic conditions to saying that environmentalists are deliberately causing these fires to malign his government. But scientists have given different reasons. So today we have with us Praveepur Kayashta to talk more about these reasons and the responses that have come to it. So Praveepu, starting with the causes, can you tell us more about why there has been such an increase in the number of fires this year? Well, if you know what Bolsonaro stood for in the election itself, he has said that he thinks there are too many Indians as he calls them, indigenous people. And in the Amazon, they have just too much land, therefore his program from the beginning and he stated it with no hesitation, no obfuscation, no pretence, was to clear large areas in the Amazon, use it for cattle ranching or for soya cultivation, open it for logging companies as well as open it for mines. So this has been stated, shall we say, objective. And if you see where the fires are taking place, of course, this is the start of the dry season, every year there are fires in the Amazon in this period and this will go up to about September, October. But the point is the numbers that have increased sharply this year, we can also see they are taking place next to roads. So therefore, there does seem to be a deliberate intention starting from the edges, so to say, to eat into the Amazon exactly as Bolsonaro and his, shall we say, his friends and relations want, which is to take away land from the Amazon forests and use it for other purposes. So this I think is the basic issue and not only was this pointed out by the Brazilian space agency and in showing this increase in fires, but the head of the space agency was sacked because he pointed this out. Now the question is what now we have is independent conservation what the Brazilian space agency had said and this has come out from variety of, shall we say, sources based in the space because there are number of, shall we say, satellites which image the globe and some of them are specifically devoted to imaging forest fires. So all of this, and this is a picture that we have from the Modi system, all of this show the increased frequency of fires and it is very easy to compare the satellite imagery of this year to last year. So I think the case is not even open to question and the fact that Bolsonaro showed no interest in fighting the fires earlier. Now of course, he has declared a moratorium for the time being on the forest fires, which means that he said, hey, wait a little, it's getting too hot for me and after some time you know you can do it again. So this seems to be the approach, there is no fundamental change in the approach. Even as latest a week back, he has gone on record talking of too many Indians. Earlier he had even said that the American, the US cavalry was efficient, meaning in removing quote unquote Indians from North America and we have been less efficient. The Brazilian cavalry was less efficient. So you know, in a certain sense it really speaks of a larger genocidal agenda he seems to have regarding the Amazon and particularly his indigenous people. And also what do you think about the responses coming to this, these fires of course as Bolsonaro's response, but also these fires are not limited to just Brazil, there's also Bolivia which is neighboring Brazil and President Ivo Morales' response has been quite different. So what do you think about these responses and the global responses that have come? I think there are two sets of issues here. One is that there is an argument which the Amazonian countries including Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay and others have made, which is that Amazon is very important for the world and we can discuss why it is so. But more than that, if we have to keep our forests then there has to be a global compensation for what we are doing. This is a part of the climate justice agenda, which means easy financing, low loans, low cost loans to the people to develop alternate ways of using this. Scientific forestry also must be supported by finance. And if you don't want the rich countries to grow forests, which none of them seem to be willing to do, I just don't see that you know you could reverse shall we say the forestry in western Europe and so on. Then of course the demand of climate justice is this country should be compensated. So all of these countries have said that we need to use the forest land efficiently and also expand agriculture in some of the areas, but taking into account the needs of the environment and Ivo Morales and Bolivia have taken the issue of forest fires very seriously. We have pictures of him fighting the forest fires. But the real issue that underlies all of this is the issue also of climate justice and development that you cannot think of the Amazon forest being kept without they are being in some sense globally supported in this endeavor because it is a fact that this land under forest can be utilized. The question is how can it be utilized in the way that it makes sense to the people of the area. It makes sense to the indigenous people who are still there and it makes sense also to the rest of the world. This is a complex democratic process of reconciling this. So I don't think it's just a question of either or as Bolsonaro is posing or a lot of the global north shall we say also argues that Amazon forest should be left as is, but they are also not willing to take into account that what is it that we do in order for the Amazon forest to be kept. That's I think also the larger question we have. What is very clear that there is behind this whether it is a Trump or it's a Bolsonaro. There is also the white nationalism agenda that the indigenous people deserve to be thrown out and we should use those economic resources for our benefit. And there is also the agenda of shall we say big capital. How can we really use this more efficiently, more efficiently for the corporate world. And all of this is also enmeshed with the climate denial, climate change deniers, which to which both Bolsonaro and both Trump belong. It's interesting that the global right is generally a climate change skeptic and even Mr. Modi for instance really doesn't seem to believe in climate change because he's been on record earlier about it. And of course he gives lip service to it today. But if you see the for instance attack to the forest rights act in India coming from this government, you see a similar pattern that seems to be there. So both so both aspects are involved. One is the attitude to the indigenous people and the other is the attitude to climate change itself and the interest of capital versus the interest of the people. So we also have a lot of economic models that advocate that it is better to mitigate the effects of these changes later on in the future rather than addressing them now. And right now it's just better to work in the interest of capital. So what do you feel about these? Is this the way to go? Well, they argue that it's better to work in the effects for development. Not they don't say they want to work for capital. That's of course the argument they would give and they would also say that the mitigation in the future is less costly because we'd be richer. So this is the argument. Of course, as we know, all economic models appear to be objective but they have their values embedded in it in different forms. So this I would say embeds the value of capital and that too of the developed countries in this model in different ways. One is the effect of climate change. And as we know, if the Amazonian forest fires continue, then this means a huge release of carbon dioxide there and it has a very serious implication for climate change because this will push very rapidly the greenhouse effects in the world. And those effects one release cannot really be reversed. So if we want to start addressing climate change and not mitigation, then we have to see this does not happen. And the Nordhaus model, which one of them is the one you're referring to, would argue that let's not worry too much about that, but let's address the rise of the sea levels and what will happen in terms of mitigation. So I would argue that the issue that they don't want to address is that unfortunately, climate change is not going to have effect everybody equally. It is going to have less effect on what's called the temperate lands, the global north as it were, Western Europe, North America, Canada, and so on. And it will have much more adverse effect in what's called the global south, which is the tropics and equatorial regions. So you are going to see really that the burden of the climate change will fall much more on those who have not caused it and those who caused the major parts of the climate change, which is, of course, profligate use of carbon-based fuels, fossil fuels, and also consumption of the products of, shall we say, energy intensive industries. So both senses, these are the people who cause the climate change, but they're not going to feel the effect of this so badly. So therefore, shall we say, the differential impact of climate change is one issue. And this sounds coming from the global south that people in the global north to the advanced model is not surprising because it's really in their interest. The second part of it, if you look at capital, capital really doesn't look at long-term effects. It really looks at very short-term goals. And therefore, their goals are to make money today. And if you want to make money today, then, of course, looting, shall we say, the environment for resources, converting it to capital is a much bigger gain than what happens 30 years later. So capital is notoriously short-sighted. In fact, finance capital today looks at only a quarter's returns. So given that, all the econometric models that we are talking about, privilege, shall we say, short-term gains over long-term, shall we say, losses. And therefore, the econometric models are biased in favor of what I would call as the capital strategy for short-term gains. And I think this is also what we see. What we really need is a different way of looking at all of this. And unfortunately, economics should not is dominant today in the way we look at long-term issues. But when you look at long-term issues, they're far more societal. And that cannot be, shall we say, addressed by looking at the so-called econometric models we are talking about today. Thank you, Prabhi, for joining us today. And that's all the time we have. Thank you for watching NewsClick.