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Faith and Force


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Miss Rand's lecture (audio), Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World, is available at the Ayn Rand Institute. Listen for free. The lecture runs about 57 minutes and is followed by a 53 minute (second audio) Q&A period in which Miss Rand goes into detail discussing (quoted from ARI):

Ayn Rand’s recommended books on capitalism;

The meaning of productiveness for one whose wealth is already assured;

Why the use of force is not in a rational man’s interests;

Breaking with society vs. breaking with the culture;

The psychology of Dominique in The Fountainhead.

Excellent lecture; exceptional Q&A!

(The lecture is available in written form in her book, Philosophy: Who Needs It.)

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  • 4 years later...

First, an updated link to the audio lecture.
 
Secondly, has anyone else noted the following discrepancy on page 70?
 

I have said that faith and force are corollaries, and that mysticism will always lead to the rule of brutality. The cause of it is contained in the very nature of mysticism. Reason is the only objective means of communication and of understanding among men; when men deal with one another by means of reason, reality is their objective standard and frame of reference. But when men claim to possess supernatural means of knowledge, no persuasion, communication or understanding are impossible. Why do we kill wild animals in the jungle? Because no other way of dealing with them is open to us. And that is the state to which mysticism reduces mankind—a state where, in case of disagreement, men have no recourse except to physical violence.

 

I've tried looking this up on Google to see if anyone else has challenged the word "impossible" in this context. It has been cited numerous times, all the citations to date, have used the text verbatim.

 

After listening to the relevant passage on the audio presentation, I note that Miss Rand definitively uses the term "possible" in its stead.

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