Ayn Rand pointed out that reason is the basic means of human survival. Given this, one might guess that the theory of volitional intelligence could shed light on many events in world history.
 
We can begin with an observation that Ayn Rand made. The fact that humanity today enjoys the wonderful fruits of modern civilization is due to a tiny number of individuals. Ayn Rand called these individuals “a long, thin line of men”. Ayn Rand believed that in each generation of men, a vanishingly small number of them go to the trouble of discovering the new ideas which the rise of civilization depends on.
 
In my view, it is the few members of each generation who choose to develop an active intellect at an early age who are responsible for the feat of creating the intellectual foundations of civilization worthy of the name. The rest of humanity is the majority who choose at an early age to develop the habit of cognitive slacking —and who therefore never develop the high intelligence required to come up with original ideas. This majority of humanity constitutes what Ayn Rand called “the ballast of history.” This majority of humanity does not determine the course of history. They merely “go with the flow.” They follow rather than lead.
 
In my opinion, history can be better understood if we divide humanity into seven different categories. The criterion for the division is the degree of cognitive effort/activity that they habituate – usually at an early age. My seven categories divide humanity according to their characteristic so-called “psycho-epistemology”. The term psycho-epistemology was coined by Ayn Rand. The term refers to the characteristic way a person’s subconscious interacts with their conscious mind. So - psycho-epistemology is all about the way a given individual’s mind typically works – i.e. his habituated thinking patterns.
 
Ayn Rand’s protege, Dr. Leonard Peikoff, developed an hypothesis to explain the role of psycho-epistemology in history which he called “The DIM Hypothesis”. This hypothesis attempted to explain the course of history by means of the main features of people’s psycho-epistemology. I.e. by reference to people’s typical patterns of thinking. Dr. Peikoff divided the psycho-epistemology of humanity during various historical epochs into three main categories. During some periods of human history, societies were dominated by a philosophy that led most people to develop a tendency to integrate their knowledge of reality. During other periods of history, societies were dominated by a philosophy that led most people to mis-integrate their knowledge. Finally, some periods of history were dominated by a philosophy that led people to dis-integrate their knowledge. The direction of history during different periods tended to be marked by certain tendencies depending on which type of psycho-epistemology dominated during those periods – Dis-integration, Integration or Mis-integration (hence the name “DIM” Hypothesis).
 
I believe that Dr. Peikoff’s hypothesis is very interesting and that it is probably of great use in explaining history. However – a more fundamental question than the question of what a man’s typical way of thinking happens to be - is the question of the degree to which he chooses to think at all to begin with! I am trying to shed light on history by means of a theory that deals with how much people habitually exercise their reason. The choice to think or not to think to begin with must logically precede the choice of which specific method to use when thinking.
 
So - I divide humanity into seven categories in terms of how often and how hard they habitually choose to think. A vast majority of people fall into one of these seven categories at some point during childhood – in accord with the habit(s) they develop in terms of cognitive effort. For rather obvious reasons, I facetiously call my hypothesis about the role of psycho-epistemology in history “The DUMB-Hypothesis” (apologies to Leonard Peikoff)!
 
1) SEVEN CATEGORIES OF PEOPLE
 
The first category of men I call the Discoverers. These men choose at a very early age to develop a highly active intellect. As a result, these individuals develop the intelligence needed to discover new knowledge about reality on their own. Some examples of such men are Aristotle, Galileo, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Ayn Rand. These are the individuals who make up Ayn Rand’s “long, thin line of men.”
 
The second category of men I call the Explorers. These individuals choose at a more advanced age, or to a lesser degree, than the Discoverers to develop an active intellect. As a result, they do not acquire the degree of intelligence required to discover new knowledge about reality on their own. But they do develop the quality of intellectual independence. These individuals make the effort to seek out knowledge about reality - to engage in intellectual exploration - by seeking out and learning the knowledge already reached by the Discoverers. They are not as intelligent as the Discoverers, but their intelligence is sufficient to enable them to independently evaluate the ideas of other men – and to choose those ideas which correspond to the facts of reality. Many successful businessmen belong to this category of people. Many grassroots Objectivists also belong to this category.
 
The third category of men consists of the First-Handed Cognitive Slackers. These individuals choose at an early age to prefer to “take it easy” when it comes to thinking. But not just any kind of “easy”. These men are certainly cognitive slackers most of the time. But they are also, at the same time, what Ayn Rand called “first-handers”. When things really matter – that is, when they find themselves in a bind – these people are willing to get off their butts and do some independent thinking. And they have the courage required to trust the judgment of their own mind when they do so! They do not default and commit the ad verecundiam fallacy. They are not pathetic second-handers. First-Handed Cognitive Slackers are characterized by the attitude “I choose to think only when I see a compelling need to do so – but then I sure as heck do think!” So - these people do not choose to think most of the time, in situations where there is not an obvious need to think staring them in the face. But – when a need to think does stare them in the face – then they trust their own mind instead of trusting some alleged authority. Some examples of this category of people from Ayn Rand’s fiction are – in my personal opinion (Ayn Rand would most certainly object to this opinion of mine) – Eddie Willers and Cherryl from Atlas Shrugged and Mike from The Fountainhead.
 
The fourth category of men are the Volitional Dummies. These individuals are those second-handers who are on the fence in the fundamental issue of life versus death. They develop a passive mind at an early age. Because they habitually neglect to think, they become ignorant. But unlike the members of the third category above, they don't have the balls to admit to themselves that they are ignorant. So - they fake knowledge, by imagining that there is a shortcut to knowledge of reality - a shortcut that consists of blindly trusting the word of some alleged authority.
 
So - this category of people has developed not just one bad habit, not to think, but two bad habits. Not to think and to habitually commit the ad verecundiam fallacy! So - these people are not only volitionally ignorant, like the First-Handed Cognitive Slackers – but they are also volitionally dumb! Because it is truly a dumb policy to take authority figures at their word. The best examples of volitional dummies in Ayn Rand's fiction are the residents of Starnesville in Atlas Shrugged – and Catherine Halsey in the Fountainhead.
 
The fifth category of men are the Volitional Idiots. These people don't just choose to evade the need to think - like the Volitional Dummies. They choose to go into action as well – even though they do not really know what the heck they are doing. These individuals consist of such types as the grass roots of such evil movements as environmentalism, multi-culturalism and socialism. The Woke crowd in today´s USA consist of volitional idiots. They are volitional dummies who have taken the plunge and committed themselves to the teachings of some alleged authority figure(s) on the basis of blind faith. Volitional Idiots go out there into reality and try hard to act as their own destroyers without knowing it. Like lemmings running towards, and off of, a precipice!
 
The sixth category of men are the Evading Second-Handers. These individuals choose to actively evade the facts of reality both in thought and in action. These second-handers are downright evil. For – they actively destroy values (on a modest scale) on purpose. Some examples of this category of people are common criminals (e.g. Al Capone), the intellectuals who are the driving force in the “woke” movement, violent political activists (e.g. anti-fa thugs, BLM thugs, the Nazi brown-shirts of 1930s Germany and such non-totalitarian dictators as Pinochet).
 
The seventh category of men I call the Moral Monsters. These scumbags choose to engage in massive evasions of the facts of reality – in thought and in action. The Moral Monsters act to destroy values on a massive scale. They constitute “crusaders for evil”. Some concrete examples of Moral Monsters are totalitarian dictators (e.g. Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao) and those intellectual leaders of mankind who distort and deny the truth on purpose (e.g. Kant, Hegel, Augustine, Marx, Dewey etc.)
 
It should be obvious that these seven different categories of men vary in number. The members of the first category are vanishingly small. Certainly, much less than one-tenth of one percent of humanity. But this tiny minority of people, the Discoverers, carry the rest of humanity on their shoulders. Since it is this small minority of people who are most devoted to the activity of thinking, it is they who discover the most crucial pieces of knowledge that the rest of mankind depends on to survive and to flourish. We have such precious values as rational philosophy, science, technology, modern medicine, political freedom etc. to thank these heroes for.
 
The members of the second category of people are considerably larger in number than the first. But the Explorers still constitute a small minority of people. In my estimation, no more than a couple of percent of humanity - tops. This category of people plays an important role in history as a vital “transmission belt” between the Discoverers and the rest of humanity. The Explorers are sufficiently intellectually active so as to act as transmitters of the ideas of the Discoverers to the rest of humanity.
 
The members of the third category of men are more numerous than either of the previous two categories. These First-Handed Cognitive Slackers amount to perhaps five, or at most ten percent, of all mankind. They promote the good in human history—but not terribly much, since they do not bother to think much, except in emergencies. But—after the Discoverers have done the work of producing the good ideas, and after the Explorers have done the work of starting off the diffusion of the good ideas through the culture - it is this third category of people who then join the embracers of good ideas and begin to fight for those ideas. So - this category of people promotes the good on a middling and important scale.
 
The members of the fourth category of people are by far the largest category of them all. These are the Volitional Dummies. They are cognitive slackers, who also are second-handers. By my estimate, roughly sixty to eighty percent of the members of humanity are these cognitively passive creatures. They constitute a fortiori the “ballast of history”! They can go either way or the other in the choice between good and evil. If evil ideas happen to occupy the most shelf space in the culture, they tend to join the evil (because they happen to come into contact with evil fundamental ideas first). Then they become Volitional Idiots. A couple of examples are the majority of the people in, for example, Nazi Germany or the Gaza Strip. That is, they become a bunch of vicious killers under the influence of evil ideas.
 
But – if the society into which they happen to be born happens to be dominated by good ideas – then they become civilized people. The majority of the people in today’s United States belong to this category (at least until very recently) – they are fairly decent people, thanks to the fact that they have been lucky enough to be surrounded by decent fundamental ideas since childhood. Most of the Volitional Dummies in the USA do at least work for a living – so they do contribute to the physical sustenance of their societies. Which is a significant pro-life value.
 
The members of the fifth category of men, the Volitional Idiots, tends to be smaller than the fourth category. By my estimate, they amount to at most ten percent of humanity in most societies. For – they are the Volitional Dummies who choose to go out on a limb and commit themselves to some philosophical trend or other. They are by their nature morally bad. For – evil philosophies do in fact “occupy the most shelf space” in the cultures of the western countries nowadays. Since Volitional Dummies do not evaluate abstract ideas with their own independent thinking – but instead take alleged authorities on faith – they tend to embrace the bad ideas which dominate the culture nowadays in the western countries. The fraction of Volitional Dummies who happen to choose good ideas over bad ones is small. Since bad ideas occupy much more shelf space than good ideas in the western societies today - the working of random chance results in this pattern. The minority of Volitional Dummies who embrace good (i.e. rational) ideas wind up becoming First-Handed Cognitive Slackers. But the majority of the Volitional Dummies today, who choose to become active, wind up becoming Volitional Idiots – since bad philosophies are much more predominant nowadays than decent ones. There are literally millions of Volitional Idiots in the world today, who embrace such fallacious and destructive ideas as mysticism, collectivism, egalitarianism and the like. The saving grace of many Volitional Idiots is that most of them work for a living - and therefore they contribute at least something to the physical sustenance of their societies.
 
The members of the sixth category of men, the Evading Second-Handers are few —about one or two percent of the total population. They consist mostly of society´s common criminals and purposefully dishonest intellectuals. They are parasites and they weigh down the more decent members of society belonging to the first five categories – who tend to be productive.
 
The members of the seventh category of people. The Moral Monsters, is vanishingly small – probably on the same order of magnitude as the first category, The Discoverers. There are only a handful of them in every generation. Very few members of mankind indeed feel motivated to engage in massive evasion and massive evil.
 
A general principle is that the degree to which a man chooses to think is approximately equal to the degree to which he contributes to the maintenance of life. And the degree to which a man chooses to evade tends to be the degree to which he harms the interests of human life. So - the Discoverers, despite their vanishingly small number - are the heroes who contribute the most to humanity's success. The rest of us humans depend on the circumstance that at least a few individuals make that rare decision to develop an active mind in early childhood. Their feats make civilization possible. Nevertheless, other men also, if and when they choose to think, contribute to humanity's progress - albeit to a more modest degree.
 
2) THE COURSE OF HISTORY – AN INTELLECTUAL PROCESS
 
The course of history depends on the prevailing conception of reality in each society. Specifically, men’s basic, fundamental conceptions of reality are what determine how they tend to choose to act. The basic conceptions of reality consist of the principles of philosophy. So - philosophy is the motor of history. Philosophers determine the course of history. For the better when the philosophers are rational. And for the worse when the philosophers invent delusions.
 
An interesting question is this: Why have liberty and decency been so rare in human history? Why have all but a precious few societies over the past few thousand years of recorded history consisted of brutal tyrannies? Why have free, decent societies been almost unknown before the late 18th century?
 
According to Ayn Rand, this relationship has been due to the fact that, with very few exceptions, humanity’s original thinkers have failed to identify the facts of reality correctly within the subject area of philosophy. According to Ayn Rand, it was only during the Renaissance that Aristotle's almost unique, and for the most part correct, philosophy of reason slowly began to gain acceptance in the West. During the Enlightenment of the 18th century, Aristotle's beneficial influence blossomed - with the rise of political freedom, and subsequently industrialization during the 19th century, as a result. And during the 19th and 20th centuries, political freedom has spread throughout the world thanks to more, and more men learning at least some parts of the rational view of reality which Aristotle had discovered more than 2.000 years previously.
 
The course of history is mostly a matter of the spread of rational or irrational ideas from the thinkers to the less intellectually active men - via a kind of "cultural osmosis". The "cultural osmosis" consists of the most intellectually active individuals coming up with the ideas, teaching those ideas to slightly less intellectually active individuals, who in their turn teach the ideas to even less intellectually active individuals, and so on and so on. New ideas, in the relatively rare cases when they arise, gradually spread from the most intellectually active individuals down to the least intellectually active individuals. In this way, an entire society can eventually be characterized by the beneficial discoveries or harmful delusions a few lonely individual thinkers.
 
This is what happens when a society moves forward:
 
A genius Discoverer, such as Aristotle, creates a rational conception of the nature of reality – i.e. he creates a rational philosophy. The Discoverer teaches this philosophy to a smaller number of Explorers, who are not intelligent enough to come up with this philosophy on their own. But who are intelligent enough so as to be able to learn the philosophy from the master. These disciples, the Explorers, go on and pass on the philosophy in turn to a larger number of First-Handed Cognitive Slackers. These First-Handed Cognitive Slackers, who constitute perhaps five or ten percent of the population - subsequently gain, in the best case, influence over the Volitional Dummies. Since the latter constitute the overwhelming majority of the population, the battle is usually won if and when this group of men finally accepts the rational philosophy/conception of reality.
 
However, the crux of this process is the free will of those involved. First, the Discoverer must choose to do the truly hard work of correctly identifying the philosophical facts of reality for the first time ever. If he does not choose to make that effort, no process of improvement will begin, and the world will remain a primitive mess. When the Discoverer subsequently tries to teach his new philosophy to the Explorers, they may choose not to make enough of an effort so as to be able to grasp that the philosophy presented to them is correct and valuable. If, and when the Explorers do grasp the value of said philosophy – and they try to teach said philosophy to the First-Handed Cognitive Slackers - it may happen that these Slackers do not make the cognitive effort required to get the message. And if the First-Handed Cognitive Slackers do try to spread the philosophy still further, it may happen that the great big mass of Volitional Dummies simply chooses not to think at all - and as a result misses the message completely. At any critical point, the chain of idea-propagation can be broken if the prospective recipients of the philosophical ideas choose not to strain their grey cells to a sufficient degree.
 
What happens when a society develops “backwards”? For example, what was the process in Germany when Hitler and the Nazis took power in the 1930s?
 
It began with a Moral Monster philosopher, Immanuel Kant, who invented a gigantic intellectual trap for his fellow human beings. Through sophistical arguments, this philosopher was able to fool many members of categories two, three and four throughout the 19th century, especially in Germany, into embracing his crazed philosophy – because these people chose not to critically examine Kant's false ideas carefully enough. By the time the 20th century finally rolled around, Kant´s false philosophy had gained widespread, mostly implicit, acceptance in Germany. Then it was a simple matter for Hitler to exploit, like a parasite on parasitism, the soil in Germany which Kant had begun to create 200 years earlier. So, the rise of Hitler was the culmination of a 200-year process of intellectual and cultural opposition to reason - and consequently to civilization.
 
3) THE SECOND-HANDER – HIS FUNDAMENTAL NATURE
 
Members of category four are extremely gullible. The Volitional Dummies usually do not judge the truth of abstract ideas with their own independent minds. Instead, they usually just accept an idea that is presented to them on the base of blind faith in some alleged “authority”. Second-handers are a certain kind of entity. A second-handed man, regardless of whether he is a member of category four, five, six or seven – is an individual who perceives reality “second-hand”, as Ayn Rand put it. (It was Ayn Rand who coined the terms second-hander and first-hander.) Second-handed people are so egregiously averse to thinking on the abstract plane that they, close to always, neglect to judge the truth of an abstract idea for themselves. They are so afraid of trusting their own mind that they, instead of thinking critically, try to make things easy for themselves by blindly trusting some authority figure. So - the distinguishing characteristic of a second-hander is that he acquires his abstract, “difficult-to-grasp” premises about reality almost entirely through the ad verecundiam fallacy. A second-hander does not perceive reality through his own mind. Instead, he takes a detour and perceives reality via someone else’s mind. As Ayn Rand put it, the second-hander is a parasite on consciousness. He is dependent on others for his very perception of reality!
 
Here are some concrete examples of second-handers. Many devout Catholics take it for granted that the Pope is an infallible authority in questions of religious doctrine. So - they blindly take the Pope's word for it (“it” being the dogmas of the Catholic faith). An Islamist suicide bomber trusts the Koran and the mullahs so utterly blindly that he renders himself capable of blowing himself up for the sake of his faith. The Nazi brownshirts were such thoughtless, gullible second-handers that they were willing to be beat people up in the streets in service to Hitler in 1930s Germany. Many professional economists today dare not think differently from the prevailing orthodoxy in contemporary economics - which is Keynesianism (or monetarism). So - they join the chorus and continue to praise the system of fiat money and perpetual inflation – all the time up until the point where the economy ends up on the brink of collapse. Many young immigrants in Europe today grow up in criminal environments. And they blindly conform to their peers' criminal lifestyles without thinking. This is how the numerous criminal youth gangs in Europe's big cities are created.
 
It will be easier to understand the basic nature of the second-hander with the help of a concept that I have invented – The Metaphysical Drunken Driver. Imagine an automobile driver who is driving his car down the highway while he is under the influence. Because he has chosen to get into the car and try to drive - even though he is not sober - he is a mortal danger to all his fellow motorists on the highway. Since he is not truly in control of the car that he is “driving” he can cause an accident at any random point in time and kill an innocent fellow man. Something similar applies to the second-hander – i.e. the Metaphysical Drunken Driver. This creature goes through his entire life without really being in control of his perception of reality. He does not use his own independent mind to examine the ideas that he happens to be exposed to. Instead, he merely accepts whichever ideas happen to come his way in accordance with the ad verecundiam fallacy. He takes some supposed authority figure at his word.
 
So - chance determines the perception of reality the second-hander acquires. The second-hander goes through his life without really being in control of his thought processes and thus his behavior. He can therefore at any random time cause misfortunes which harm a fellow human being – if and when he happens to fall under the influence of bad ideas. He is like a puppet - a puppet whose strings are pulled by some philosopher whose identity is utterly unknown to him. If the second-hander happens to be born into a healthy culture, he can, under the influence of good ideas - become a fairly decent person. Like a typical middle-class individual in today's North America or Western Europe. If he just happens to be born in a modern Western country.
 
But if he happens to be born into a sick culture, he can, under the influence of bad ideas, become a Neanderthal type. Like a brownshirt if he happens to be born in Weimar Germany, or a suicide bomber if he happens to be born in today´s Gaza Strip or Iran. The behaviour of the second-hander is determined by whether his mind is “taken over”, so to speak, by a good philosopher or by a bad one. (The behaviour of the first-hander, on the other hand, is determined by his own thinking and his own choosing.)
 
Yes! The second-hander does still have free will. He can choose to think – at literally any arbitrary point in time. But – all the time that he chooses to act in accordance with his character, instead of choosing to act against his character, he neglects to exercise volitional control over his thinking. He is like a motorist barrelling down the highway - but all the time choosing to keep his hands off the steering wheel! He chooses not to steer the car. Or – the second-hander chooses not to exercise control over his acquisition of ideas. And, but of course, as long as the second-hander chooses to forgo cognitive control - i.e. as long as he chooses to go by the ad verecundiam fallacy - he is like a Metaphysical Drunken Driver who is keeping his hands off of the steering wheel. .
 
Because second-handers are intellectually passive, history is shaped by a small minority of the members of mankind. Notwithstanding that the second-handers constitute the vast majority. The majority of humanity does not bother to think much at all. Second-handers follow. They do not lead - because they do not think (much, that is). They merely conform to the prevailing intellectual trends - which are set by the minority of people who choose to develop active minds.
 
As a result, Ayn Rand believed that it is a small number of philosophers whose activities explain the main features of the course of history. The fact that humanity has suffered from misery throughout almost all its entire history is mainly to be attributed to a small number of bad intellectual leaders (e.g. Plato, Augustine, Muhammad, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Gautama, Confucius etc.). And the relatively rare successes of humanity are to be attributed to the influence of the very few good, rational intellectual leaders (e.g. Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and to some extent John Locke and Isaac Newton).
 
4) CAUSALITY AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY IN HISTORY
 
But my theory of volitional intelligence forces me to disagree with Ayn Rand´s idea that close to the sole responsibility for the negative features of history falls on a handful of bad intellectual leaders.
 
The negative features of history – namely the recurring wars, brutal tyrannies, superstitions, poverty, famines, etc. – were certainly due to philosophical frauds more than to any other single factor. But - it takes more than just one kind of bad actor for a fraud to be perpetrated! It is not enough for a fraudster to appear on the scene. Two types of bad actors, not just one, are required for a fraud to be carried out. It doesn't just require a fraudster. It also requires one or more gullible victim(s) (i.e. a "sucker(s)").
 
For a philosophical fraud to be carried out, it is required that an intellectual leader invent a thoroughly false philosophy. But subsequently, it is also required that an army of victims turn up who are so unintelligent and thoughtless that they take the bait! Since I hew to the idea that each individual's level of intelligence depends on himself - I believe, and I realize, that it is the individual's own fault – if, and when he fails to see through the toxic philosophical ideas which are foisted on him by bad philosophers. Immanuel Kant would never have stood a chance without the (mis)use of their free will by the great big mass of humanity's second-handers.
 
If only the vast majority of the members of humanity had not chosen to be as ignorant and stupid as they have chosen to be - then the world of the past 115 years would have been spared the world wars, the totalitarian dictatorships, the crazy-ass religions and superstitions, etc! If not for the free choices made by a vast majority of men - humanity would be much better off!
 
Ayn Rand was half right. She was absolutely spot on that the good things in history are basically due to the tiny minority of men who develop an active intellect and a high degree of intelligence. When the second-handers happen to fall under the influence of this small minority – then the second-handers flourish and get a real chance to enjoy happiness. But mostly only because they have been lucky enough to enjoy an opportunity to hitch a ride on the exploits of the tiny minority – the “long thin line of men” who carry mankind on their shoulders.
 
So - the second-handers of humanity, i.e. the majority of common men, do not bear any major share of the responsibility for the good things in history. Only for the bad things.
 
Ayn Rand was wrong when she believed that it was almost entirely the fault of the bad philosophers when the world went to hell. The bad philosophers could not have had their pernicious influence over the world if it had not been for the fact that the great majority of the members of humanity have down through the ages chosen not to acquire the intelligence which would have deterred them from taking the bait offered by the bad philosophers.
 
So - both the bad philosophers and the morally culpable majority of mankind were, and are, to blame for the misery of the world!
 
Karl Marx got it all wrong. The masses are not the heroes of history - they are rather the greater number of its villains! The majority are not "the salt of the earth" - they are closer to being "the scum of the earth"!
 
So there! Eat it. All you pathetic second-handers and envious mediocrities out there!