The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com and at Amazon.com.

I have as my guest today, Dr. Yaron Brook. He's the President and Executive Director of the Ayn Rand Institute. He's worked in academia, where he's received numerous teaching awards. He's also an entrepreneur who has founded several companies. He lectures extensively in the United States and abroad on many topics, including ethics, and he served in the Israeli Army intelligence. Dr. Yaron Brook, welcome.

Thanks for having me on.

Oh, it's wonderful to have you on again. You served in Israeli Army intelligence, and you must have seen the methods that the terrorists use to destroy a person. And I want to bring it to the family first, and then you can elaborate on it in terms of what you see in politics going on now or in Israel when you were serving in Army intelligence.

If a woman is raped, there's a difference if she's kicking and punching the rapist trying to escape. We recognize the difference between the initiation of force, which is the rapist, and the retaliation, the woman trying to fight back. If she pokes out his eyes or punches him someplace that hurts a heck of a lot, he's earned it. And we sit there and say, "Yay for you," to the woman. But something different is happening now on the political scene. We can see the difference between the initiation of force and retaliation. I'm wondering what you see now that makes those two equivalent—the rapist the equivalent of the victim.

Well, you see that from universities. We see that from university professors who claim that the United States is equivalent to the terrorists who attacked us on September 11, that we're the same morally, that America is somehow a terrorist state, and in many respects worse than the terrorists. This is what they claim.

But when you say this, you know I'm rolling my eyes, raising my eyebrows. Why would anybody believe this crap?

That's a good question. I think because it appeals to a certain group of people who want to criticize America in any way that they can. Usually, it comes from people who don't believe in our system, who don't believe in capitalism, who don't believe in freedom, who don't believe in individual rights. And to them, the fact that we chose this particular system, this particular system of freedom, is the same as somebody else who chooses slavery, chooses dictatorship, chooses religious theocracies. Because to them, there is no right or wrong; there is no truth and falsehood. They believe that reality is a flux, that nothing you actually see really exists. You make it up as you go.

I don't think anybody genuinely believes this. I think that's a cover-up. I think that they're envious.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the psychological element that's driving them is envy. But there are hundreds of years of philosophical writings trying to justify the fact that there is no right or wrong, that everything's relative, and there is no real reality, that we just make it up as we go along. Those philosophies, for various psychological reasons—it's a great crutch to believe that you can create your own reality in your own mind, and you don't have to pay attention to the laws of gravity and the laws around you.

Okay, so there are many people—fortunately, they're not in the majority in the United States; otherwise, we would not be a civilized country—but there are people that really are envious, and they're driven by the motive to make anything look equivalent, to make anything good look like it's equivalent to something equally bad. It's like this is whitewashing the bad.

Yeah, I mean, it's one way to justify bad. The way to justify bad is to say that it's equivalent to good, or to say that there is no such thing as...

So, let me give an example. What about the priests who are pedophiles? How do they make them seem—what do the apologists for those people say?

Well, they say, "Well, we all have flaws. We all commit sins, and as long as they repent, that's okay." I mean, the real nasty ones, the real evil ones, will actually say it's good for the kids.

In some sick way, that the kids asked for it.

Exactly. But I think others try to justify it in the sense that we all have evil in us. None of us are perfect; none of us are completely pure, good people. Which I think is complete nonsense, particularly when you take it to that kind of abusive degree. Most of us are not that bad.

Here's a tough question: How can you tell the difference between good and evil?

Hey, got to interrupt this, because we've got to pay some bills. Thirty seconds, that's it. A very quick ad, and then Ellen will be back.

Romance. Oh, I wish guys knew more about what we want from a relationship. Boy, I wish I knew more about what I want. Where's that ad I saw? Here it is: "The Selfish Path to Romance," a serious romance guidebook. Download chapter one for free at SelfishRomance.com and buy it at Amazon.com. Hmm, "The Selfish Path to Romance," that is interesting.

Here's a tough question: How can you tell the difference between good and evil?

Well, good is that which supports human life. Good is that which leads to success, to prospering. Good is that which is rational, which is consistent with reality. And bad tends to be whim-worshipping. It tends to be a negation of reality, an escape from reality. And therefore, it is anti-life. It's anti-human life, and it usually involves hurting oneself and hurting other people.

Okay, so my show is called "The Rational Basis of Happiness." Most people want to be happy—I mean either that or they've just given up on their lives. But they come into therapy saying, "I feel anxious, I'm having panic attacks," or, "I just don't feel like my life is going in any direction. I don't have any focus in my life, and I'm not happy." And you're saying that there's a standard for good, that if that person is more rational, they're more likely to achieve happiness. Whereas if they think that anything goes or that the guys in the prison are the equivalent of the guys at universities—there are some cases—but the better professors, then it seems like there's no good or evil. Why bother? Why set goals? Why try to achieve anything in life if you're no good if you do it?

Now, that's absolutely true. And more than that, one of the things religion teaches us, which I think is horrific, is the notion that you can be good and not happy—that you get your happiness in some other world, after you die. And I believe that leading a good life, being good, being rational, leads to happiness. The two are not divorced from one another.