Individualism: Part 1. An interview with Wilde, Huxley, and Rand

INT: Good evening. Tonight we are going to talk a little about individualism, the extent to which man can raise his voice above the crowd, and can come to understand his position within the world. Joining me this evening to discuss this, are three of the worlds most prolific writers and thinkers from the last 150 years; Mr Oscar Wilde, Aldous Huxley, and Ayn Rand.

(Applause)

Oscar, we're all individuals aren't we?


OW: Are we dear boy? How extraordinary. No, I think one could argue that Individualism can and does exist but is very much limited to the few and specifically, those who can afford it. The true individual is able to lift himself above the clamorous claims of others, to rid himself of the need to live his life for other people. There are some great men of science like Darwin for example, or poets such as Keats who have managed to stand, as Plato says, "under the shelter of the wall" and so to realise their true potential, the potential of what lives inside one, but no, sadly the vast majority of the population, of this country at least, exists in a world of unhealthy and exaggerated altruism.

INT: Are you saying altruism is bad?


AR: I want to pick up on a point here, just to answer your question briefly - yes, but more than this existing in a world of forced altruism, forced physically by a state or self imposed by religion is worse than unhealthy, it is evil. Man should exist on his own merits alone, should be an end in himself. By that I mean that man should hold the right to pursue his own happiness, that this is indeed his moral purpose in life and this being the case, that laissez-faire Capitalism is the only environment in which man can flourish as an individual human being.



AH: But I think I would take issue there insofar as Capitalism, as a backdrop to pursuing individualism, can only lead to clusters of petty dictators, lording over groups of workers in much the same way as we understand totalitarian Communist dictators to and I really don't see a difference in the structure of oppression.


AR: Free, laissez-faire Capitalism does not lead to monopolies and dictators as Communism does. Marx posited the opposite. He was wrong but we have clung to that idea as if it were gospel.


OW: Not so. Socialism, or Communism, or whatever you want to call it, ultimately leads to self-governence and freedom from any structure of power. Not only that but it frees one from property by converting it into public wealth. Property is demoralising, public wealth eradicates the vulgarity of charity - which I should say perpetuates the very core of the problem. No the key to Individualism lies in what man is, not what man has and he should be able to rise from the torpid groove which pushes him to accumulate more and more material wealth without addressing what he is truly capable of.


AR: I agree on your points of man understanding 'what he is' and 'what he is capable of'.


AH: Also, I think it's fair to say that laissez-faire capitalism can only force man to live on a global scale, further disenfranchising him and disconnecting him from the world and others immediately around him


AR: But not if you disconnect economics from the state, then it would be impossible.


AH: But it can only lead to an understanding of Individualism on one level, that is, the individual's pursuit of money...


AR: The individual's pursuit of happiness...


AH: The individual, so far as I see it, can only exist when he contributes directly to society and he can only do so once 'the crowd' is done away with. By this I mean, that majority rule on mass scale can not be accepted. With decentralization, which I strongly advocate, man works within a group - smaller and more distinctive that the crowd, his voice is heard and his voice matters. From here, from this direct contribution to the world about him he comes to believe in himself as an individual. Ms. Rand's particular brand of Individualism can only lead to Napoleans and Hitlers. I have always failed to understand why society celebrates those who trample upon others and clamber to the top of the pile.

INT: I'm afraid we have to cut to a commercial break.


OW: Oh, how vulgar.


AH: You wouldn't get this on the BBC old boy.