 question. Okay, here it goes. What is the best way to go about explaining the value of principles and long term goals in the world of pragmatism and short termism? How best to point out how impractical and harmful the practical approach can really be? Now, this is crucial because this is really, I think, one of the most important questions that we face today, because we're really facing a world today that is dominated by pragmatism, short termism, emotionalism, we've talked about tribalism, but really what they all are united around is a lack of any kind of principal thinking. Indeed, not only a lack of principal thinking, a rejection of the very idea that principal thinking should be valued, the principal thinking has any virtue or value. The world is too complex, we're told, to think in principle. You have to take into account the circumstances, the specific nature of everything going on. You can't make generalizations. You can't actually think in broad generalizations, which is what principles are. Now, I'm going to give my answer to this, and the answer that I'm going to give you is very much based on, whoa, that changed things, on a particular essay that I would encourage everybody out there to read. So anything I say, I've learned from Dr. Pigoff and Ayn Rand, and Leonard Pigoff addresses this question in one of, I think, his most important, maybe his most important, one of his most important, photo forum talks that he ever gave, which is available for free online at the Ayn Rand Institute campus. The name of the talk was why should one act on principle? Why should one act on principle? So first of all, you know, even if you listen to my whole presentation here today, even if you think you've learned something from my presentation here today, go read this essay, because this is one of the most important essays in Objectivism you will read, and it's really crucial. It's at Ayn Rand.org slash campus, or just do a Google search on why should one act on principle Pigoff, and it's the first thing that pops up is the link to Ayn Rand campus where this essay, and you get a transcript of the essay, even though this was given as a talk, and it's not really a transcript, it's actually an edited essay, because what happened to this essay is it ultimately landed up in Philosophy Who Needs It, that collection of essays that includes Ayn Rand's talk on Philosophy Who Needs It. It also includes this. So I encourage everybody to read it. It was given at the photo forum in Boston on April 24, 1988, and then it was published, of course, in 1989 in the Intellectual Activist, and ultimately in 2011 in, oh, it was only published in Why Businesses Need Philosophy. I thought it was in, okay, Philosophy Who Needs It. No, it was published in Why Businesses Need Philosophy, The Capitalist Guide to the Ideas Behind Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrug. Now, there's a book you should all buy. It's on Amazon. Why businessmen need philosophy? Go to Amazon, get that book, and of course, this essay is there, and the reason it's in that collection primarily is because businessmen are often the ones to argue from a pragmatic perspective. Why should we think of principle? Life is too complex. Generalizations don't work. What we really need is to think concrete by concrete. Example by example, case by case. Now, when I read the essay, because I read the essay because of the question being asked, I started really laughing out loud because of the example he uses. Now, this is 1988, and the example he uses right off the bat, like in paragraph four. I'm going to read you the example. I'm going to read from it because it just shows that, you know, all the work we do, nothing changes. Nothing changes. Okay, here's the example. Suppose, for example, that some American businessmen upset about Japanese sales in the U.S., which they feel are cutting into their own sales, and they go to the government for relief. You know, just replace Japanese with Chinese, and here we are. You know, we're exactly today. 1988, today, nothing's changed. Nothing's changed. And of course, he says, just to be clear that my position on trade is the same as not to pick up position of trade. Of course, if they came to me, I would say, this is not to me, but to pick up, you must decide whether you advocate the principle of free trade or the principle of protectionism. Then I would offer a proof of the evils of protectionism, showing why we'll harm everyone in the long run, American businessmen included, and why the principle of free trade would ultimately benefit everyone or everyone productive. That would be the end of the dilemma, and the people demanding tariffs would be sent home packing. Wouldn't that be cool if it was that easy, right? So what I'd be trying to do over the last months or years is to say, the evil of protectionism, of the principle of protectionism, it's evil. And then there's a principle of free trade, and it's right. It's always right. Long term, it always works, and it doesn't matter if they're Chinese or Japanese, and it doesn't matter if it's cars or steel, and it doesn't matter if it's software or anything else. It always works. That's what a principle is. And of course, what I get in reply is exactly what the unprincipled mentality, the pragmatist mentality feeds you back. But this time it's different because the Chinese are subsidizing the steel industry. So are the Japanese. The Japanese arguably were subsidizing all their industries and protecting them in all kinds of ways. No, no, this time it's different because the Chinese have tariffs on American goods. But that's always been the case. The whole argument about free trade initiated, came from. The whole idea, now Seth Martinez is saying, well, what if the Nazis did it? But the Chinese are not the Nazis. So what relevance does that have? And of course, now he says, well, what about the intellectual property theft? But I've already addressed intellectual property theft. The principle of intellectual property is a principle you don't trade with thieves. So if something is based on intellectual property theft, you ban that product. You know, I have to say this 3,000 times. It doesn't sink in. Because again, people can't think in principles. They hold it as concrete and concrete, you forget, and you can't hold the concrete. You can't hold the thousand concretes. Where do you draw the line? It's simple. If a product is based on the theft of intellectual property, it shouldn't be sold in America. That's it, period. That's where you draw the line. Is China a threat to the United States, like Nazi Germany was in World War II? No. Now, if you want to talk foreign policy, we can talk foreign policy. But that's a different question. And again, if it is a threat, then ban all products from China. But again, that doesn't violate the principle of free trade. Free trade, the principle of free trade is the idea of trading with countries that are not a physical threat, military threat to the United States. It's a principle. And it was a principle with Japan. And I'm sure people in Japan at the time said, well, the Japanese copy everything and they steal our IP. And you know, the Japanese, they once were an enemy, they could theoretically be an enemy again. And they're buying our golf courses. That was the big, that was the big deal. And the Japanese wanted to buy golf courses. So look, I'm not going to talk about Chinese trade. The point is that what you're really seeing, and I knew this, but when I read Leonard's article, it just boom, hit home like Leonard always does to you. It makes everything clear. I'm debating principle, people who can't think in principle. And this is true when we talk about the nature of Donald Trump. We're talking to people, I'm talking to people, I don't know about you guys, who can't think in principle. So Donald Trump is a committed, thoroughly committed pragmatist. He's an anti-intellectual, principled, unprincipled pragmatist. That's what he is. That's his nature. And that appeals to a broad segment of the American population, including some people who think of themselves as objectivists, because they too ultimately do not think in principle and are afraid to think in principle. The world is too complex. Oh, things have changed. The left, the left, oh my God, the left is coming. We need to be afraid. So we need to abandon principle in order to save ourselves on the left. And one of the questions I have, so the number five question, let me just quickly take it here, the number five question was, what is Dr. Peacock's reaction to Trump? Now, Leonard is, you know, for example, on the issue of immigration, it's much more sympathetic to Trump than I am. As you know, I've debated Leonard on immigration. We disagree on this point. But because he's convinced that all these people coming in, they ultimately vote Democratic and he views that sometimes, not always, he views Democrats as the number one threat. And we need to stop them now. And therefore, we need to restrict immigration. So, but what I can say about Leonard's response to Trump without, I think, risking anything and without speaking for him, because I, you know, I don't want to speak for him. But the conversations I've had with Leonard, the one thing that comes across is his disgust, utter disgust with Trump's anti-intellectualism, pragmatism, blatant lying, blatant deception. That's, so that aspect of Trump put aside the policy where, you know, he might be more sympathetic to Trump on immigration. I'm obviously very opposed to Trump on immigration. But on his character, on his thinking, I hate to call it thinking, because I don't think he does much thinking, right? He condemns Trump thoroughly, right? Trump is a pragmatic anti-intellectual, anti-principle politician, maybe the most pragmatist politician ever. And I think, I think, you know, and I think that would be representative of Leonard's view of Trump. But again, all the caveats, you know, he would probably say it better. He would say it differently. He would have much more, much more to say about it. And I do not, in any respect, speak for Leonard Pickup. But I thought, since that was a question that was asked and it got quite a few votes, I would cover that in the context of talking about principles. I told you, this principle issue covers a lot. So, it's exactly because every country out there, whether it's Mexico or Canada or South Korea or China or Germany or Brazil or Vietnam, which used to be an enemy of the United States, each one of them, you know, is a specific concrete. Each one of them have different industries. Each one of them subsidize different industries. Each one of them have tariffs on American goods, but at different levels. Each one of them is different. And the way today we deal with trade, and this is why I'm against, you know, bilateral deals or multilateral deals or any kind of deals around trade. The way we deal with trade is we look at each one and we say, okay, you know, for Korea, we raise the tariffs like this and we'll lower the, and there's no principle, zero principle. The principle is a lack of principle. The principle is there were four protectionism and we're going to decide to what extent to implement it based on which gang of businessmen or which gang of cronies or which gang of special interest groups or pressure groups shouts the loudest or in Trump's case, we will make the decision based on many politicians case on who can muster the most votes against us for us. That's how we'll decide on tariffs and on trade. And my view is I have a principle. That principle is called free trade. It's a principle in economics that Adam Smith proved 240 years ago. It's a principle that since Adam Smith did it 240 years ago has been reproved over and over and over again with new examples and accommodating the evolving theoretical basis of economics over and over again by economists as diverse as Mises, Keynes was pro free trade and even Paul Krugman was ultimately in his past pro free trade but Milton Friedman, Mises Hayek, so the Austrians, the Chicago school but even many of the so-called leftist schools all were consistently have proven over and over again the theory of and the principle that free trade works that it is the best system, the only system that works long term and that everyone benefits from it and the way to implement free trade is two steps again not controversial one lower tariffs unilaterally to zero to put political pressure other pressure on other countries to do the same but lead primarily by example but even if they don't do it again all economic principle and all economic theory suggests that you are better off and they are worse off but it's not just economic theory moral theory suggests exactly the same if we understand the world of government we understand the world of morality and we understand what self-interest actually means it is in my self-interest it's in all of americans self-interest even the steelworker who loses his job unprinciple it is in our self-interest to unilaterally lower free lower tariffs because yes while the steelworker might lose his job he is living in a free society and there are multiple benefits of living in free society including the availability of other jobs including the availability of cheaper products a rising standard of living so it's not as the pragmatist would like us to believe every decision we make out there there are losers and there are winners we have to trade off winners and losers no anybody who's willing to use their mind anybody who is willing to work for a living anybody who's willing to be productive who is interested in being productive is willing to engage their mind and to be active out there in the world in order to achieve his goals benefits from the principle of free trade would benefit from a trade policy in the united states that unilaterally lowered tariffs to zero with the one caveat that you don't trade with the enemy but then let's be very clear on who the enemy is of course we trade with the enemy all the time enemy like Saudi Arabia so suddenly everybody gets upset about china because of font policy i don't believe you i don't believe you you're using that as a pretense because if you really cared about font policy you would be much more up in arms about Saudi Arabia than you are about china because Saudis have actually killed americans the chinese have not okay let's get to a little bit more of the philosophical issue here why think in principle what is it about principles what what what is it about the nature of reality and the nature of man that indeed requires us to think in principle that you cannot survive you cannot thrive as a human being unless you think in principles and indeed as the lender points on in his essay improves in his essay everybody thinks in principles if you don't think in good principles ultimately you're going to adopt through lack of thought so not everybody thinks in principle everybody uses principles the principles of evil bad principles indeed pragmatism is not a way human beings can live it's impossible for people to live moment to moment expediency based on the concrete in front of them that's not how human beings function it's not how human beings function because we are not programmed we are not animals we're not like the animals right we're not like other animals that have it all instinctually and they just need to observe the concretes of the moment and they know what to do we don't know what to do so we have a choice we can act on our emotions doesn't lead to very good results we can act based on what somebody else tells us we can be complete second-handed we can act based on what the Alita tells us or what the tribe tells us or what somebody else tells us not a recipe for individual flourishing or we can engage the one tool evolution nature has given us the one tool that evolution nature has given us to deal with the complexity in the world to deal with the multitude of facts that exists out there use that tool in order to survive and that tool is our conceptual ability that tool is our reasoning capacity and what reason what conceptual ability allows us to do is condense the units life is complex there's just too many things going on how do you how do you figure out how to find food how you know if you you know if you 20 000 years ago how do you figure out you can't go by your emotions you don't have any instincts to hunt i mean we're pathetic hunters we have to figure it out we have to invent we have to discover we have to think and strategize and the only way to do that because there's so many things going on there's so many animals out there and they're running in all kinds of directions and you know it doesn't make any sense if you just look at it at the perceptual level if you just open your eyes and look you actually have to think what we need today what i called a new intellectual would be any man or woman who is willing to think meaning any man or woman who knows that man's life must be guided by reason by the intellect not by feelings wishes wins or mystic revelations any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's scout of the spare cynicism and impotence and does not intend to give up the world to the dark ages and to the role of the collectivist brogues