The Possible Dream by Harry Binswanger

When philosopher Harry Binswanger launched the Objectivist Forum in 1980, Ayn Rand expressed her approval of the project in a short article she wrote for the first issue. She also agreed to serve as the bimonthly journal’s philosophical consultant. Here is his recollection of her involvement with “The Possible Dream”:

"My agreement with Ayn Rand concerning The Objectivist Forum was that before publishing an issue, I would give her advance copies of anything I was writing for that issue. That made sense because I was the editor-publisher of the journal to which she was giving her mailing list and her personal endorsement. This arrangement continued until her death — i.e., for the first two years of TOF.

I wrote “The Possible Dream” while living for the summer of 1980 in Los Angeles. Ayn Rand, of course, was back in New York City, so, in accordance with our agreement, I mailed her my draft of “The Possible Dream” and then talked to her about it over the phone. She explained to me, very gently, why what I had drafted wouldn’t do. She thought it would have to be rewritten from scratch. Some of it she thought was off, philosophically, and some of it she thought was getting too much into issues outside philosophy (for instance, I had a section on the need for personal growth).

I found a different article for that issue and put “The Possible Dream” project on hold. When I returned to the article a few months later, I had come to understand her perspective on the subject of perfection. That made it pretty easy for me to write more solid prose in addition to getting the logic right.

The main work was to create a new outline. Once I had that, I was able to rewrite the draft to be something that pleased both of us.

And that’s the story of where that article came from. I didn’t at all know at the time that “The Possible Dream” would become the most popular article in the eight-year history of the Forum."

The editors of New Ideal are pleased to republish “The Possible Dream” here in full, with Dr. Binswanger’s kind permission and his minor edits. The article will appear in two parts, as it did originally in the Forum’s February and April 1981 issues. Note: Parts of this excellent essay assume an awareness of Objectivism and especially Atlas Shrugged.

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Видео The Possible Dream by Harry Binswanger канала Ayn Rand Institute