Intellectual Bankruptcy
Published at 2026-06-26.
Visited 197 times (last visit: 2026-08-27).
Here's a quote from chapter nine of Ayn Rand's book "The Virtue of Selfishness".
I really liked it and you should consider reading the rest of the book.
Philosophically, that cult is a negation of morality - but,
psychologically, this is not its adherents' goal. What they seek
is not amorality, but something more profoundly irrational:
a nonabsolute, fluid, elastic, middle-of-the-road morality. They
do not proclaim themselves "beyond good and evil" - they
seek to preserve the "advantages" of both. They are not
moral challengers, nor do they represent a medieval version
of flamboyant evil worshipers. What gives them their peculiarly
modern flavor is that they do not advocate selling one's soul to
the Devil; they advocate selling it piecemeal, bit by bit, to any
retail bidder.
They are not a philosophical school of thought; they are
the typical product of philosophical default - of the intellectual
bankruptcy that has produced irrationalism in epistemology,
a moral vacuum in ethics, and a mixed economy in politics.
A mixed economy is an amoral war of pressure groups, devoid of
principles, values or any reference to justice, a war whose
ultimate weapon is the power of brute force; but whose outward
form is a game of compromise. The cult of moral grayness is the
ersatz morality which made it possible and to which men now cling
in a panicky attempt to justify it.
Observe that their dominant overtone is not a quest for the "white,"
but an obsessive terror of being branded "black" (and with good
reason). Observe that they are pleading for a morality which would
hold compromise as its standard of value and would thus make it
possible to gauge virtue by the number of values one is willing to
betray.
The consequences and the "vested interests" of their doctrine are
visible all around us.
Observe, in politics, that the term extremism has become a synonym
of "evil," regardless of the content of the issue (the evil is not,
what you are "extreme" about, but that you are "extreme" -
i.e., consistent). Observe the phenomenon of the so-called neutralists
in the United Nations: the "neutralists" are worse than merely neutral
in the conflict between the United States and Soviet Russia; they are
committed, on principle, to see no difference between the two sides,
never to consider the merits of an issue, and always to seek a compromise,
any compromise in any conflict - as, for instance, between an aggressor
and an invaded country.
[...]
Like a mixed economy, men of mixed premises may be called "gray"; but,
in both cases, the mixture does not remain "gray" for long. "Gray,"
in this context, is merely a prelude to "black." There may be "gray" men,
but there can be no "gray" moral principles. Morality is a code of
black and white. When and if men attempt a compromise, it is obvious which
side will necessarily lose and which will necessarily profit.
Such are the reasons why - when one is asked: "Surely you don't think
in terms of black-and-white, do you?" - the proper answer (in essence,
if not in form) should be: "You're damn right I do!"
Ayn Rand wrote this piece in 1964 and it's still as relevant as back then.
Of course, any excerpt is always out of context, so go ahead and read it yourself!
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