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I have just received a copy of Leonard Peikoff’s new DVD, entitled "Leonard Peikoff at West Point", from the Ayn Rand Bookstore. It consists of two speeches by Peikoff to the faculty and cadets of West Point Military Academy, one on the subject of "What is a just war?" and the other a general overview of objectivism.

West Point has a significance for objectivists, in that Ayn Rand was invited to speak there in 1974 on the subject of "Philosophy: who needs it". That speech forms the first chapter of Rand’s famous non-fiction anthology of the same title. In 1974, Rand told the academy why human beings need philosophy. 29 years later, her intellectual successor returned to tell them exactly what philosophy they need and why.

I find objectivist writers extremely enjoyable to read, not just because I tend to agree with them, but because the quality and originality of the argument, as well as the passion for ideas on display, make for such a refreshing change from the stale old "rightist" and "leftist" cliches, the intellectual sneering, and the mindless ad hominem common in discourse today. The only political articles I have read recently which have actually completely changed my mind and altered my perspective on any issue have been written by objectivists. Two of my favourite objectivist writers of recent times have been Robert Tracinski, editor of the wonderful magazine the Intellectual Activist, and Leonard Peikoff.

Peikoff, however, is perhaps at his best speaking in front of a live audience. The clarity with which he presents his ideas, the insightfulness of his dissection of modern culture, and his unapologetic advocacy of reason and capitalism are wonderful for an objectivist to listen to, but also highly persuasive to an open-minded non-objectivist. At the very least, anyone listening would have to respect Peikoff for the integrity and passion with which he presents his (highly controversial) views.

This is important for Peikoff, because he views education and peaceful agitation as the only proper way to move towards a more rational society. By altering the premises of our culture, and presenting a new generation of intellectuals with the ideas required to defend western civilisation, Peikoff hopes to change the world for the better. Any attempt to "jump ahead of the game", for instance by starting an objectivist political party, is doomed to failure until the required intellectual basis for such advances is in place.

In this DVD, Peikoff is on his usual form (although I felt he was even better in his most recent speech at the Ford Hall Forum, entitled "America vs. the Americans", in terms of his organisation and the originality of his views — although perhaps this is because the material in that speech was almost all new to me, whereas I have heard many of the arguments on this DVD before). His appearance on the recording is a little odd, as he has one of the lenses of his spectacles blacked out (presumably to cure a lazy eye or for some other medical reason), but I was so captivated by what he was saying that I hardly noticed after the first few seconds.

So what does he say? The DVD consists of an introductory section, where Peikoff describes Ayn Rand’s visit to West Point, and Yaron Brook (the director of the Ayn Rand Institute, which Peikoff founded in 1985) explains the purpose of the 2003 visit by Peikoff. The video then launches straight into Peikoff’s talk to a small group of faculty and cadets, entitled "What is a just war?". The word "justice" implies a code of morality, of course, so this was always going to be a talk about ethics. But for objectivism, ethics is inseparable from the underlying epistemology and metaphysics, so these topics also make an appearance, although time constraints meant that Peikoff had to deal with most of these issues in the question & answer session afterwards (which also appears in full on the video). Peikoff also considers the proper functions of government in his speech, which is of course highly pertinent to war.

Peikoff considered two aspects of war which have to be morally evaluated: the reason for war, and the manner in which it is conducted — the "why" and the "how" of war, the end and the means.

Under the former category, he gives two types of reason for war which he considers immoral, or unjust: wars of aggression against innocent nations (e.g. those waged by Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia), and wars of "social service" (e.g. Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, Liberia and so on). The first of these is widely accepted as immoral, the second is of course highly controversial. The only type of war Peikoff views as moral is wars of self-defence (which does not preclude pre-emptive war if objective evidence of a threat exists).

With regard to the war in Iraq (which was of course even more topical in September 2003 than it is today), Peikoff points out that Bush attempted to cast the Iraq war partially as a war of self-defence, but that Iran poses a far greater threat to America (in terms of weapons of mass destruction and sponsorship of terrorism) than Iraq ever did. He therefore argues that the Iraq war was essentially an altruistic war, a Christian war (which was the way Bush actually sold the war to the American public, with statements like "Americans know how to sacrifice for strangers"). Peikoff contrasts the Christian idea of self-sacrifice (with the corresponding rejection of self-defence — "turn the other cheek" etc) with the objectivist advocacy of self-defence (which includes the defence of one’s own citizens abroad and their property).

When it comes to the means of fighting, Peikoff gives two criteria for evaluation: the number of casualties on one’s own side (which should be as few as possible), and the massive destruction of the enemy, "as great as necessary fully to break his will and terrorise the country into posing no future threat". Again, everyone agrees with the first, but the second is more controversial, so Peikoff clarifies what he means. He believes that our weapons should be aimed "not just at the enemy’s armed forces or political leadership, but wherever [they] would contribute to the [enemy] country’s demoralisation and therefore speed its collapse". This may, in extreme cases, even include the deliberate targetting of infrastructure and so-called "innocent civilians". Peikoff holds that the only citizens of an enemy country which we have a moral obligation to protect if possible are members of underground groups which oppose the current corrupt government.

This seems incredibly controversial today, being beyond what even the most ardent "hawks" in the Bush administration advocate. But the fact is that if, during World War II, the allied leaders had not had the moral courage to wage just this kind of war, the fascists would have won. Peikoff is saying that if a war is justified, then this is the way it should be fought. He holds up the example of World War II as a just and well-fought war, approving of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the carpet-bombing of Tokyo in March 1945.

He also talks about the war of ideas. He mentions the "de-Nazification" of Germany after World War II. It is notable that the ideologies of wartime Germany and Japan are no longer a threat, after the total defeat and demoralisation of those countries following the war, and that those two countries are now in fact much better off than they would have been, had fascism been allowed to fester. Peikoff mentions that the more we fight "unlimited" wars of the type he advocates, the less we will have to do so, because aggressor nations will take our threats seriously.

One of my favourite moments of this first session comes at the end of the question & answer session. One of the faculty comes up to Peikoff and thanks him for coming, commenting on Peikoff’s honesty and integrity. Just before the video fades to black to make way for the next section, Peikoff grins and says "I didn’t pull any punches there, did I?". He certainly did not.

The second section is probably more useful for a newcomer to objectivism. I am a little surprised that it wasn’t put first on the DVD, as it is a more general description of the objectivist philosophy. It begins with an introduction from a philosophy instructor at West Point describing why Peikoff was invited. It then has an interesting snippet from Peikoff’s 18-year-old daughter Kira, describing her view of her father’s work. Following this is another contribution from Yaron Brook, putting Peikoff’s talk in historical perspective. Then comes Peikoff’s talk itself.

This talk was given to a slightly larger group in a lecture theatre (in contrast to the previous one, which took place in a classroom). Peikoff briefly presents the objectivist view on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and (even more briefly) aesthetics, but spends most of the lecture speaking about the war in Iraq. Here he brings it up in reference to the points he has been making about objectivist philosophy, contrasting his own view with that of the two main non-objectivist schols of philosophy, skepticism and religion.

Peikoff neatly summarises his previous criticisms of the Iraq war by saying "we fought a limited war, to altruistic ends, and the result is the chaos of a country conquered, but unsubdued, because the war was fought not in the name of self-defence, but of love".

This leads to an attack on both liberals and conservatives, as regards their attitudes to war. The conservative altruists, including the neoconservatives in the Bush administration such as Perle and Wolfowitz, pushed the war because of altruism and crippled US troops by ordering them to take a "softly-softly" approach. The liberals, says Peikoff, are essentially skeptics. They say about the war what they say about everything: that there is no certainty, no absolutes, the Arabs’ views are as valid as ours, we should not fight the enemy but be "pragmatic" and negotiate.

One side, says Peikoff, tells us to pick the wrong enemy because of faith in God, the other tells us we have no business classifying anyone as an enemy at all. The result is that American leaders have at their disposal the most powerful military in the world, which can defeat any other force on earth, but refuse to use it.

This led me to reconsider my praise for the American right in this recent post. I said:

…when it comes to issues of the war against Islamist terrorism, people like Frum [an American neoconservative who was an economic speechwriter for George W. Bush] “get it” — by which I mean, they actually see it as a war, and they advocate fighting it.

Yes, but how do they advocate fighting it? Have Bush’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq really made us safer? After watching this video, I’m no longer sure that they have. They have simply moved the terrorists around: the Taliban and al-Qaeda fled over the Afghan border to Pakistan, and Saddam’s supporters never left Iraq at all, they simply hid in Baghdad because they knew the Americans would never strike it. Not only that, but the heart of terrorism in Iran, and the financial support in Saudi Arabia, is still as strong as ever.

Such is the power of the West, that we could completely destroy the threat of terrorism in a few short weeks with well-fought wars against the right targets. But this would require leaders with the moral courage of the founding fathers. Is Bush the "right man" to lead America at this point in history? In Peikoff’s view, the answer is no.

This DVD is region-free (and I don’t think it’s even protected by CSS) so it will work on any DVD player without modification. Sound and picture quality are acceptable throughout, although subtitles would have been nice. Altogether this is a highly recommended purchase.

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