Benevolent Universe Premise - Ayn Rand

There is a fundamental conviction which some people never acquire, some hold only in their youth, and a few hold to the end of their days - the conviction that ideas matter - that ideas matter means that knowledge matters - that truth matters - that one’s mind matters . . . .

Its consequence is the 
inability to believe in  
the power or the triumph of evil.

No matter what corruption one observes in one’s immediate background, one is unable to accept it as normal, permanent or metaphysically right. One feels:

“This injustice (or terror or falsehood or frustration or pain or agony) 

 is the exception in life, not the rule.”  

One feels certain that somewhere on earth even if not anywhere in one’s surroundings or within one’s reach

a proper, human way of life is possible to human beings, and justice matters.  

Although accidents and failures are possible, they are not, the essence of human life. 

On the contrary, the achievement of values is the norm—speaking now for the rationally moral person. Success and happiness are the metaphysically to-be-expected. In other words, Individualism rejects the view that human fulfillment is impossible, that man is doomed to misery, that the universe is malevolent. 

Individualists advocate the “benevolent universe” premise.

The “benevolent universe” does not mean that the universe feels kindly to man or that it is out to help him achieve his goals. No, the universe is neutral; it simply is; it is indifferent to you. You must care about and adapt to it, not the other way around. But reality is “benevolent” in the sense that if you do adapt to it—i.e., if you do think, value, and act rationally, then you can (and barring accidents you will) achieve your values. You will, because those values are based on reality.

Pain, suffering, failure do not have metaphysical significance—they do not reveal the nature of reality. You remember when Dagny asks Ragnar in the valley how his wife can live through the months he is away at sea, and he answers ... quote just part of this passage:

“We do not think that tragedy is our natural state. We do not live in chronic dread of disaster. We do not expect disaster until we have specific reason to expect it, and when we encounter it, we are free to fight it. It is not happiness, but suffering, that we consider unnatural. It is not success but calamity that we regard as the abnormal exception in human life.”

This is why heroes respond to disaster, when it does strike, with a single instantaneous response: action—what can they do? If there’s any chance at all, they refuse to accept defeat. They do what they can to counter the danger, because they are on the premise that success, not failure, is the to-be-expected.

Ayn Rand ; The Lecture Series - Lecture 8