and destructiveness have been thoroughly exposed by Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged. But there are two aspects of the
issue that are especially pertinent to the subject of mental health.
The first is the fact that self-sacrifice means—and can only mean—mind-sacrifice.
A sacrifice means the surrender of a higher value in favor of a lower value or of a nonvalue. If one gives up that
which one does not value in order to obtain that which one does value—or if one gives up a lesser value in order to
obtain a greater one—this is not a sacrifice, but a gain.
All of man's values exist in a hierarchy; he values some things more than others; and, to the extent that he is
rational, the hierarchical order of his values is rational: he values things in proportion to their importance in serving
his life and well-being. That which is inimical to his life and well-being, that which is inimical to his nature and
needs as a living being, he disvalues.
Conversely, one of the characteristics of mental illness is a distorted value structure; the neurotic does not value
things according to their objective merit, in relation to his nature and needs; he frequently values the very things
that will lead him to self-destruction. Judged by objective standards, he is engaged in a chronic process of self-
sacrifice.
But if sacrifice is a virtue, it is not the neurotic but the rational man who must be "cured." He must learn to do
violence to his own rational judgment—to reverse the order of his value hierarchy—to surrender that which his
mind has chosen as the good—to turn against and invalidate his own consciousness.
Do mystics declare that all they demand of man is that he sacrifice his happiness? To sacrifice one's happiness is to
sacrifice one's desires; to sacrifice one's desires is to sacrifice one's values; to sacrifice one's values is to sacrifice
one's judgment; to sacrifice one's judgment is to sacrifice one's mind—and it is nothing less than this that the creed
of self-sacrifice aims at and demands.
If his judgment is to be an object of sacrifice—what sort of efficacy, control, freedom from conflict, or serenity of
spirit will be possible to man?
The second aspect that is pertinent here, involves not only the creed of self-sacrifice but all the foregoing tenets of
traditional morality.