Ron Pisaturo’s Blog

Apollo 11

Today, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of man’s landing on the Moon, I read Ayn Rand on “Apollo 11” (The Objectivist, September 1969). Here are some excerpts:

The meaning of the sight [the launch] lay in the fact that when those dark-red wings of fire flared open, one knew that one was not looking at a normal occurrence, but at a cataclysm which, if unleashed by nature, would have wiped man out of existence—and one knew also that this cataclysm was planned, unleashed and controlled by man, that this unimaginable power was ruled by his power and, obediently serving his purpose, was making way for a slender, rising craft. One knew that this spectacle was not the product of inanimate nature, like some aurora borealis, nor of chance, nor of luck, that it was unmistakably human—with “human,” for once, meaning grandeur—that a purpose and a long, sustained, disciplined effort had gone to achieve this series of moments, and that man was succeeding, succeeding, succeeding! For once, if only for seven minutes, the worst among those who saw it had to feel—not “How small is man by the side of the Grand Canyon!”—but “How great is man and how safe is nature when he conquers it!”

That we had seen a demonstration of man at his best, no one could doubt—this was the cause of the event’s attraction and of the stunned, numbed state in which it left us. And no one could doubt that we had seen an achievement of man in his capacity as a rational being—an achievement of reason, of logic, of mathematics, of total dedication to the absolutism of reality. [pp.5-6]
…
Those four days conveyed the sense that we were watching a magnificent work of art—a play dramatizing a single theme: the efficacy of man’s mind. One after another, the crucial, dangerous maneuvers of Apollo 11’s flight were carried out according to plan, with what appeared to be an effortless perfection. [p. 6]
…
As to my personal reaction to the entire mission of Apollo 11, I can express it best by paraphrasing a passage from Atlas Shrugged that kept coming back to my mind: “Why did I feel that joyous sense of confidence while watching the mission? In all of its giant course, two aspects pertaining to the inhuman were radiantly absent: the causeless and the purposeless. Every part of the mission was an embodied answer to ‘Why?’ and ‘What for?’—like the steps of a life-course chosen by the sort of mind I worship. The mission was a moral code enacted in space.” [pp. 7-8]

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Moral Courage

In a comment on my previous post (America’s Empty Foreign Policy: “What Our Enemies Must Understand is … ”) Burgess Laughlin of Making Progress raised interesting questions regarding “moral courage.”

To my pleasant surprise, Wikipedia describes moral courage fairly well:

“Physical courage” is courage in the face of physical pain, hardship, or threat of death, while “moral courage” is the ability to act rightly in the face of popular opposition, shame, scandal, or discouragement.

In my judgment, most American and other Western politicians have terribly mixed premises: half-formed and half-acknowledge premises upholding the protection of the citizenry, and similarly half-baked premises in favor of altruism. When they appease evil nations, these politicians are also appeasing the altruists in their own nation. These politicians must know that, in so doing, they are betraying their premises upholding the protection of the citizenry. In this respect, they lack moral courage. Moreover, and more importantly, they must know that they hold contradictory premises. In this case, the deepest form of moral courage would be to face these contradictions and commit to resolving them by identifying and upholding the right principle.

Physical courage requires a certain degree of integrity, a willingness to bear the physical consequences and risks required to uphold the ideas and values that one has already accepted. Moral courage requires something deeper even than integrity: independence.

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