Conversations with Charles

ARI

Charles, let’s turn to your discussions with Miss Rand.

CHARLES

One that comes to mind is a discussion about white lies. It took place in the early morning hours of that January 1, with the four of us—Ayn, Frank, Mary Ann, and me—sitting around the dining room table.

ARI

Who raised it?

CHARLES

I did. I thought white lies were bad, but I couldn’t make a full argument against them. Ayn proceeded to explain. But, first, let me say that I raised the subject on the spur of the moment, thinking that she would reserve a full discussion for a later time. However, she launched right in.

ARI

What did she say?

CHARLES

First she said that a white lie is understood to be a harmless fib told with good motives, usually to protect the listener from bad news. But, she said emphatically, it is not harmless; it is insidious. A white lie is worse than a straight-out lie because not only is the element of faking reality present, but the person to whom you are telling the lie is thereby deemed by you incapable of facing reality and needs protection from it. That is, the person is deemed insufficiently rational to accept a fact of reality and deal with it.

The example she gave was of the husband who has to have minor surgery and wants to spare his wife the worry. So, instead of telling her the truth, that he is going to the hospital as an outpatient, he tells her he is going to play golf. That is the epitome of a white lie. After his treatment is over and he is fine, he tells his wife about the surgery. A wife who has any self-respect is justifiably furious when she finds out the truth. She is angry that he considered her insufficiently stable to face up to whatever the present and the future might hold. Ayn said that a terrible consequence of his action is the undermining of her confidence in him to be a truthful partner.

ARI

Did she elaborate?

CHARLES

Yes. She said it puts the wife in the position of not knowing when he is being truthful and when he is shielding her from the facts of reality. This will lead to estrangement and distrust.

ARI

Did she say how this situation can be rectified?

CHARLES

First, by the husband fully understanding the meaning of his action—what it says about him and his evaluation of his wife. He has to be convinced why it is wrong to tell white lies, and this will take some rethinking on his part. The wife has to know that he fully understands the issue and more—how his white lie has affected her. Then, he has to pledge never to do it again, and live up to it.

She explained another possible outcome of the situation. Suppose, she said, something did go wrong during the surgery and the husband died. Not only is the wife left to deal with the catastrophe, but she is also left to wonder, forever, why he was not truthful with her about the incident. And worse, she will wonder how many other times he wasn’t truthful. No matter how deep her love for him, her memory of him will always be marred by these doubts. She will feel let down in a fundamental way.

Ayn added that she did not mean to imply, by using the husband as an example, that wives don’t make the same mistake. But, more often, the husband sees himself in the role of protector and may be motivated to shield his spouse with a white lie.

In a proper marriage, she said, the wife (or husband) will want to know what difficulty has to be dealt with, and how best to deal with it. She will want to be there to aid and comfort her husband. A marriage, Ayn said, is a partnership, an equal partnership. And the vows about “in sickness and in health” are not idle words divorced from meaning or application.

As to the wife who wants to be protected with white lies, who wants her husband to build a buffer between her and reality—Ayn called her “an irresponsible child” and an “evader.”

ARI

How was she during a discussion? Did she tend to dominate, because of her knowledge?

CHARLES

Dominate? Only in the sense that she usually had more to say than anyone else. She would not push or pull or pressure you. She would be quiet while you thought, and quiet while you spoke. She did not interrupt your thoughts. She let you speak it out, even though she was pretty sure where you were going. She let you take all the steps you needed to make your point. You had a sense that whatever you said, you were understood, that you were being listened to. If she saw that you were making a mistake in your reasoning, she let you make that mistake. Then she analyzed the mistake at length, and she showed you what incorrect premises led you to the incorrect conclusion. In almost every discussion, there were two parts: the subject under consideration, and how my mind was working.

ARI

You mean, “Check your premises”?

CHARLES

Yes, that was part of it. If you had a problem checking them, she helped you along.

ARI

Can you speak about another discussion?

CHARLES

There was one about surprise parties and what was wrong with them.

ARI

You raised this question?

CHARLES

Yes. Mary Ann mentioned to me that the Collective had given Ayn a surprise dinner party to celebrate the publication of Atlas Shrugged, and that Ayn was very annoyed and did not enjoy the party. Like most people, I grew up accepting surprise parties as fun events, and I was curious about Ayn’s attitude. So I brought it up one evening when we were there. Mary Ann had had a discussion with her on the issue some years earlier.

ARI

Miss Rand didn’t suggest that you ask Mary Ann?

CHARLES

No, that was not her policy. If a question was asked of her, she was the one to answer it. And she always held my context when explaining something to me.

ARI

What do you mean?

CHARLES

Ayn understood that not everyone integrates knowledge in the same way and at the same rate, and she let my way and rate of understanding the issue be her guide. This put me at mental ease. I knew that there wouldn’t be any tension about keeping up with her. When Ayn explained an issue, she was explaining it to someone.

ARI

What were her objections to surprise parties?

CHARLES

I can give you a summary of what she said, not the progression. She had several objections. First and foremost is that it puts the recipient in the position of having to suddenly switch his context and deal with an unplanned for, unexpected situation. What, she asked, is the value in that? This is what we do in cases of emergency, she said. We shouldn’t be put in the position of doing it for a celebration. She objected to being “put in a position” by someone else, of being deprived of choice in the matter.

The giver mistakenly thinks that the shock of the surprise will be more appreciated than a planned-for party. On the contrary, she said. The recipient gets no benefit whatever from the surprise element. It adds no value over and above what would be derived from a planned-for occasion. Instead, it detracts from the value of the occasion, because the recipient is put in the position of being a guest of honor and a host at the same time. He has to put his shock aside and greet people he had not expected to see (or perhaps not wanted to see), he is expected to be grateful to the party givers who study him for his reactions, he is expected to be gracious and charming when he may feel annoyance, or anger, or overwhelmed by the situation.

ARI

Did she say anything about the motives of the surprise party giver?

CHARLES

She said that the motives were bad if the party giver deliberately made it a surprise affair because he knew the recipient would refuse a party if offered. If the recipient doesn’t want a party, then there shouldn’t be a party.

She made additional points. The giver has no right to be the final unilateral authority on how anyone’s achievement is to be celebrated. And the giver has no right to be the sole arbiter to determine who the guests are. Most important, the giver has no right to be the one who determines how any evening out of the life of the recipient is to be spent. That’s up to the recipient.

Added to all this is that the recipient is deprived of the pleasure of anticipation, which adds greatly to the enjoyment of the celebration.

ARI

But some people enjoy surprise parties, don’t they?

CHARLES

That may be. She couldn’t see any valid reason for them. But that’s something the giver should find out in advance, if the pleasure of the recipient is the first consideration. And, she said, it should be.