Free The Journals of Ayn Rand by Ayn Rand Page B

the power to dictate an opinion and exercise an influence over the lives of others. Inferiors, speaking as superiors to society. Wrecks themselves—trying to wreck other lives.
     
    Prominent, “respectable ” citizens. The intimate details of how they [rose]. Unpunished crooks who commit crimes against “society” and then furiously defend the rights of society against others. “Successful” men and what makes their success. The art of boot-licking. Patriots and their ferocious intolerance. Men killed and crippled for “their country.” And who and what is that country? Show the “great” men—in business, politics, art—and how small they are when one looks closely.
     
    Home life. The stupid idealization of it, that tries to make it the highest ideal and aim for everybody. The dull, petty, purposeless existence that it is. The ridiculous smallness of it. Show young, promising people, full of life, and what they become with their “families.” The domestic-animal, eat-drink-and-sleep existence. The chewing-cow-in-the-sun contentment. The heavy, dumb, jail-like monotony of that life, day by day. [Note AR’s rejection of both the “family values” of conservatives and (earlier) the “feminism” advocated by many liberals.]
     
    Narcotic-fiends. Those who buy it—and those who sell it, making fortunes [while remaining] uncaught and unpunished.
    I leave these pages empty to be filled with [more descriptions of] those who constitute “humanity” and make up our great civilization, those for whom we are expected to live.
    They are the ones who judge the boy when he commits his crime against society.
Facts that I observe and want to remember: good examples of the “little street”
    I must remember that I do not want to invent or exaggerate anything in this story. Everything must be taken from life. I do not want it to be my furious protest against humanity—made up in my imagination. It has to be true, just life as it is, which is far worse than I could ever invent. The only thing I can do in the story is to put it all together, to show the whole, to bring things a little closer to each other, allowing people to see the close relation between the “good” and the horror of their lives.
The Hickman Case
    The first thing that impresses me about the case is the ferocious rage of the whole society against one man. No matter what the man did, there is always something loathsome in the “virtuous” indignation and mass-hatred of the “majority.” One always feels the stuffy, bloodthirsty emotion of a mob in any great public feeling of a large number of humans. It is repulsive to see all those beings with worse sins and crimes in their own lives, virtuously condemning a criminal, proud and secure in their number, yelling furiously in defense of society.
    This is not just the case of a terrible crime. It is not the crime alone that has raised that fury of public hatred. It is the case of a daring challenge to society. It is the fact that a crime has been committed by one man, alone; that this man knew it was against all laws of humanity and intended it that way; that he does not want to recognize it as a crime and that he feels superior to all. It is the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul.
    A mob’s feeling of omnipotence is its most jealously guarded possession and therefore a dangerous thing to wound. The mob can forgive any insult or crime except one: [the act of] challenging its ultimate power. It can forgive a criminal who erred, but who is just one of itself, i.e., has the same soul and ideas and bends to the same gods. But to see a man who has freed himself from it entirely, who has nothing in common with it, a man who does not need it and who openly disdains it—this is the one crime a mob can never forgive.
    It seems to me that the mob is more jealous to