Objectivism and War by Neil Parille

The Ayn Rand Fan Club (YouTubers Scott Schiff and Willliam Swig) has a new episode entitled “Objectivism and War,” which discusses the views of Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff and Yaron Brook on war, focusing on the status of innocents in war.  Rand’s comments, albeit off the cuff, don’t seem consistent or entirely thought out.  She says, in response to a question about war with the Soviet Union:

Why is it important to be concerned about politics?  Why should we care about having the right social system?  Because our lives are dependent on it.  Because those systems, good or bad, are established in our name, and we bear responsibility.  So that the Soviet citizens who are innocent I hope someday will be destroyed in a proper war along with the guilty.  There aren’t very many innocent ones, and they’re not in the big cities—they’re mainly in concentration camps.  

Robert “Rewrite” Mayhew in his edition of Rand’s Question and Answers, toned down her response a bit, adding a new sentence -- “If we go to war with Russia” -- to make her call for the death of innocents (now put in scare quotes) appear conditional.

But we must care about the right social system, because our lives depend on it—because a political system, good or bad, is established in our name, and we bear the responsibility for it.

If we go to war with Russia, I hope the “innocent” are destroyed along with the guilty.  There aren’t many innocent people there; those who do exist are not in the big cities, but mainly in concentration camps.

Scott and William then mention Peikoff, who was interviewed by Bill O’Reilly shortly after September 11, 2001.  Peikoff called for the use of nuclear weapons against Iran and said what kind of weapons to be used was entirely battlefield issue to be determined by the military in the war zone.  As William says, even of utilitarian grounds, there are good reasons not to use nuclear weapons since many of the people killed who would have been allies or even spies for the United States.  I’m no expert on Iran, but I get the impression that the base of the regime’s power is in the countryside.  Using nuclear weapons against the major cities could increase the support for the regime and perhaps radicalize the fence sitters.  Best I can tell, the entire leadership of the Ayn Rand Institute has either called for the use of nuclear weapons against Saudi Arabia and Iran or at least said it should not be taken off the table.  Never considered is that there are European countries where the Islamic population is now approaching ten percent.  The ARI doesn’t seem to have given any thought on what might happen in, say, London (now fifteen percent Muslim) should the spiritual capitals of Islam be attacked with nuclear weapons.  Likewise, it isn’t clear how attacking Iran and Saudi Arabia would stop terrorism.  For example, how would the 2016 Nice truck attack (which was carried out by a Tunisian living in France) been prevented by an attack on Saudi Arabia or Iran?

Objectivist Round-up, August 2025

1. The Ayn Rand Institute’s 2025 Objectivist Conference was held in July.  ARI president Tal Tsfany gave an address about the ARI’s future.  The most interesting part was the discussion of the new archival finds (see below).

2. Chris Sciabarra has a lengthy post, the ARI at Forty.

3. ARI honcho Yaron Brook is preparing courses for The (Jordan) Peterson Academy.  The Peterson Academy also features courses by Open Objectivist Stephen Hicks.  Shouldn’t Brook be working more with Ayn Rand University than Peterson (who is sympathetic to Christianity)?

4. Long time Objectivist writer Andrew Bernstein has a new collection of essays Aristotle Versus Religion.  One thing I’ve noticed about Bernstein and some other Objectivists is their extreme reliance on secondary (and often outdated) sources.  Bernstein’s main source for the history of Europe is Will Durant’s The Story of Civilization (1945-1975).  Bernstein cites it 64 times.  As an atheist and Objectivist, Bernstein isn’t a fan of Christianity.  Fair enough, yet many of his claims about Christianity are second-hand and often unsourced.  The atheist historian Tim O’Neill has a website that refutes the numerous urban and semi-urban legends that Bernstein has accepted uncritically.

Here is an example of Bernstein’s “scholarship”:

The Apostle Paul, for example, wrote: “The more they [the Greeks] called themselves philosophers, the more stupid they grew . . . they made nonsense out of logic and their empty minds were darkened.”  

Bernstein doesn’t even quote Paul directly but instead Charles Freeman’s 2002 book, The Closing of the Western Mind: 

“The more they [non-Christians] called themselves philosophers,” he tells the Romans (1.21-22), “the more stupid they grew . . . they made nonsense out of logic and their empty minds were darkened.”  

For whatever reason, Freeman used the 1966 Jerusalem Bible (an English translation of a French translation).  However, the most widely used English translation of the Bible in scholarly circles is the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), which says:

20 Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse;

21 for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened.

22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools;

The use of the words “philosophers” instead of “wise,” and “logic” instead of “thinking” in the Jerusalem Bible is idiosyncratic.  I can’t find a single English version that translates the Greek text that way.  The revised New Jerusalem Bible (1985) translates Romans 1:21-22 similar to the NRSV.  In context, Paul seems to be referring to human beings as a result of the fall, not to Greek philosophy or logical reasoning.

4. The Ayn Rand Fan Club has a lengthy discussion of the Leonard Peikoff/Kira Peikoff Bellis situation.

—Neil Parille