|
In 1946 Ayn Rand engaged
in a brief correspondence with a senior editor at Reader’s Digest
who was struggling to understand why so many people were taken in by Communism.
She explained to the editor that:
. .
. No honest, competent or intelligent person has ever lived by the principles
of altruism. None has ever believed it. It is not a matter of teaching
them something new, but a matter of giving statement and voice to what
the best of mankind has always believed, but never found words for.
You would be surprised how quickly it can be done and what the results
would be. Again, I refer you to the spontaneous public response to The
Fountainhead.
No,
it is not as late as you think. It is merely early—in the age of
the rebirth of Individualism. [Letters of Ayn Rand, p. 312 (1946)]
At the Ayn
Rand Institute we work for the day that "the morality of altruism
is blasted out of people's minds." That is why the focus of our programs
is moral and philosophical, not political. These programs are “giving
statement and voice to what the best of mankind has always believed.”
ARI’s outreach to “the best of mankind” includes:
- Essay
contests on Anthem and The Fountainhead for high school
students. More than 76,000 students have submitted essays to date. Follow-up
efforts offer many of these students free copies of Atlas Shrugged.
- Our essay
contest on Atlas Shrugged for college students.
- Objectivist
books and materials for high school debate teams.
- Editorials
which appear in hundreds of newspapers every year. These op-eds demonstrate
to the general public the philosophical roots of public policy—both
good and bad—and the need for the right ideas and the right philosophy.
- The Objectivist
Academic Center which trains undergraduate and graduate students for
careers as intellectuals.
The task
of changing the culture with limited resources is very challenging. But
we always have reality and reason on our side. Ultimately this
will ensure our success in the future:
. .
. There are no “waves of the future” and no “historical
materialism.” Any trend can be stopped. Any step can be retraced—if
men understand where they’re going. Collectivism cannot win. It
can only destroy.
Free
enterprise as a system may be wiped out for a while by fools, cowards
and secondhanders—but its spirit (Individualism, which means Man’s
spirit) cannot be destroyed, it will go on and win in the end, even
if it takes centuries, as it has always won in the past. Because individualism
is the only thing that works or can work. [Letters of Ayn Rand,
p. 225 (1945)]
More than
fifty years later, Ayn Rand’s benevolent outlook on the future continues
to inspire us. The year following the completion of this letter Ayn Rand
began writing Atlas Shrugged. What more eloquent confirmation could
there be of her vision of the future “if men understand where they’re
going?” What better hope for insuring that her vision for the future
reaches “the best of mankind” than increasing the readership
of Atlas Shrugged—a top priority for ARI.
Your contributions
will further ARI’s broadest possible outreach to the best of mankind.
|
