Ayn Rand - How to Rule Mankind

From Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead,” Ellsworth Toohey explains the primary technique used by politicians and government officials to wrestle power from the people.

Source: LibertyPen YouTube channel.

Transcript:

"If you learn how to rule one single man's soul, you can get the rest of mankind. There are many ways.

Here's one. Make man feel small. Make him feel guilty. Kill his aspiration and his integrity. Preach selflessness. Tell man that he must live for others. Tell men that altruism is the ideal. Not a single one of them has ever achieved it and not a single one ever will. Man realizes that he's incapable of what he's accepted as the noblest virtue — and it gives him a sense of guilt, of sin, of his own basic unworthiness. You've got him. He'll be glad to obey — because he can't trust himself, he feels uncertain, he feels unclean. That's one way.

Here's another. Kill man's sense of values. Kill his capacity to recognize greatness or to achieve it. Don't deny the conception of greatness. Destroy it from within. Laughter is an instrument of human joy. Learn to use it as a weapon of destruction. Turn it into a sneer. Don't let anything remain sacred in a man's soul — and his soul won't be sacred to him. Kill reverence and you've killed the hero in man.

Here's another way. This is most important. Don't allow men to be happy. Happiness is self-contained and self-sufficient. Happy men have no time and no use for you. Happy men are free men. So kill their joy in living. Take away from them whatever is dear or important to them. Make them feel that the mere fact of a personal desire is evil. Bring them to a state where saying I want' is no longer a natural right, but a shameful admission. Altruism is of great help in this. Everything enjoyable, from sex to ambition to the profit motive, is considered depraved or sinful. Just prove that a thing makes men happy — and you've damned it. That's how far we've come. We've tied happiness to guilt. And we've got mankind by the throat.

You must tell people that they'll achieve a superior kind of happiness by giving up everything that makes them happy. That's the oldest one of all. It stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there's someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master. I said, 'It stands to reason.' Do you see? Men have a weapon against you. Reason. So you must be very sure to take it away from them. Cut the props from under it. But be careful. Never deny anything outright. Just say that reason is limited. That there's something above it. What? You don't have to be too clear about it. You tell him he must not try to think, he must feel. He must believe. Suspend reason and you play it deuces wild. Anything goes in any manner you wish whenever you need it. You've got him. Can you rule a thinking man? We don't want any thinking men."