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Fear and Loathing
I am reading Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, and the book is stirring anger and fear in me. I am about 1/4 through the book, and there is an overwhelming theme of mediocrity being rewarded, while those who do not walk in lockstep are pushed down until they surrender. When the person who is shining brighter than the rest does not quietly accept pleas from friends to step back, people in authority step in to create rules to force them to submit. The rules are created in back rooms and under tables, and the jealousy and hatred that fueled their creation are whitewashed...in this case with empty words about social responsibility and the need to even the playing field so everyone can achieve. Furthermore, those who do not fall in line are told they are selfish and wrong to fight the power.
Not only does this remind me of current political events in this country, it reminds me of some of my experiences in corporate America. I know it is just a book, but it is pushing all sorts of buttons.
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That said, that "just a book" is expressing the same disillusionment with people of authority I have felt in the past couple of years. Rand just put it in words far more eloquent than mine.
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Rand's philosophy is a favorite of the Republican elite.
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Many people who act out of petty jealousy and hatred cover it up with big words about social responsibility and justice.
Many people do act out of petty jealousy and hatred.
Therefor, social responsibility and justice don't exist.
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Almost. I have to believe there are still just people out there, or my mind will take me to dark places I would rather not revisit. Besides, when I am optimistic, I feel better. :-)
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Normally, I'm not really a big believer in the idea that everything an author writes is strongly shaped by her upbringing, but I think that Ayn Rand's childhood in Stalinist Russia pretty much set her method of thinking into place forever.
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I have been thinking about this statement since you posted it, and I am feeling that as I read, too. Like you, I spent much of my life up to this point doing what people told me to do. In the past 7 or 8 years I have just begun to think for myself, so I am still processing baggage from over three decades of doing what I was told and accepting the judgments of others. But now, like Rearden, I am beginning to ask, "By what right do they judge me? By what authority?" Asking those questions, answering honestly (they have no right or authority, frankly), and dealing with the fallout that inevitably comes when one does not submit forces one to grow up.
The events in the book (the media coverup of the truth, for example) are eerie in their relevance!
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Like I said, the book did change my life. Sadly, I didn't feel as though I could act on those changes until well into my forties. At 51, I am glad to have read it then and have the ability to look back and forgive myself for not being more "selfish."
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Also- note that no one ever laughs in an Objectivist universe- at least not because they found anything amusing. They laugh derisively at other people quite a bit, and they do this weird, creepy "I am so happy I must throw my head back and shout 'hahaha' to express it" thing, but there is no humor at all.
And John Galt has to be one of the most irritating characters in the entire history of literature. In Galt, she is basically creating the antithesis of the "Soviet Man," and the "Objectivist Man" is just as flawed, if not slightly moreso, than his collectivist counter-part.
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"When you strain your energy to its utmost in order to produce the best, do you expect to be rewarded for it or punished?" Rearden did not answer. "By every standard of decency, of honor, of justice known to you--are you convinced that you should have been rewarded for it?"
"Yes," said Rearden, his voice low.
"Then if you were punished, instead--what sort of code have you accepted?"
Rearden did not answer.
"It is generally assumed," said Francisco, "that living in a human society makes one's life much easier and safer than if one were left alone to struggle against nature on a desert island. Now wherever there is a man who needs or uses metal in any way--Rearden Metal has made his life easier for him. Has it made yours easier for you?"
"No," said Rearden, his voice low.
"Has it left your life as it was before you produced the Metal?"
"No--" said Rearden, the word breaking off as if he had cut short the thought that followed.
Francisco's voice lashed at hime suddenly, as a command: "Say it!"
"It has made it harder," said Rearden tonelessly.
That is how I feel about my last few years of experience in the working world. That makes me angry. I do not like being punished in spite of doing my best, and that is exactly what happened on my last job. They sat there and claimed they did not understand why I had not done more, enough, whatever, when the reality is I had gone above and beyond in my efforts of trying to figure out and deliver whatever the hell they wanted. I still don't know what they wanted, and I am no longer interested in knowing. Their words and claims are as hollow and hypocritical as the claims of the people in Atlas Shrugged who claimed to be working "for the good of the people".
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I don't think it makes a lot of sense in general. I can understand why parts of the book resonated, as parts of it resonate with me as well, but the big picture, even in the novel, is fatally flawed. I particularly object to the dismissal of subjectivity in matters of art, literature and music.
Ultimately, Francisco is wrong. It is easier to live in a society than be alone in the world. For instance, Reardon couldn't have produced his metal alone. He couldn't have mined or smelted the ore (assuming he even know how); he couldn't have run a production line on his own, and the back room deals of the industrialists in AS are just as problematic, in my opinion, as any other back room deal.
Just as the collectivists devalue the individual, the objectivists devalue the collective.
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It is not always easier to live in a society than to be alone in the world. There are plenty of times it would be easier for me to not have to deal with people and their attitudes, self-righteousness, lack of respect for opinions they don't want to hear, ulterior motives, pettinesses, and so on. Why is it so difficult to express an opinion and simply be heard; why must someone try to tear it down? Why don't people say what they mean and mean what they say at all times? Why do people lie about their intentions? Why don't people always get love when they give it? Why do those who are most open to others' idiosyncrasies get rejected for not being more average, more like everyone else? Every time I encounter these things in society, and I seem to have encountered them more frequently in the past five or six years, I experience cognitive dissonance that is like being dropped into icy water. (Maybe I am just more aware of it now than I had been.) It is painful and makes me want nothing more than to walk away from society altogether the way the various industrial leaders are doing in the half of the book I have finished.
Francisco is right. Not all of the time--no one is--but there is a lot of truth in what Rand says through his character.
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I understand why it's appealing. People can be annoying as hell, but again, Francisco doesn't mean "sometimes you just want to get away," a sentiment I would certainly share. Francisco (and Rand) are postulating that people like Reardon would be able to do what he did had be been alone, which is simply not possible.
Ultimately, since their only motive is profit and self-satisfaction, it seems to me their lives are pretty empty with or without other people.
It's still a fun book though.
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The message to me is there is something more important in life than trying to fit into that kind of society, and that something is life itself.
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To my way of thinking, this is pretty much the same thing. The idea that the individual can simply divorce himself from society is, to me, nothing short of a very childish view of the world- and I do think Objectivism is childish. Again, Reardon (and Dagny, Francisco, etc.) did nothing alone; Reardon had a good idea, but he needed other people to help him realize it. Yet there is absolutely NO recognition of this reality in the book.
The industrialists were "free to live" before disappearing. They thought they couldn't live in a world that didn't appreciate their talents in the way they wanted to the world to appreciate them, and I'd have more sympathy for them had they not failed to appreciate all that others had done for them and/or the positions of privilege at which they started.
Again, to me, this is just the antithesis to the Communist ideals of a collectivist utopia, and in order to create the image of that utopia, the real world has to be presented in an unrealistic way.
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What do any of these people say when discussing their motivation to produce something or run something? Profit. They express over and over and over (and over and over) that they have absolutely no interest whatsoever in contributing to anything which could be seen as a "greater good," and to me, it's impossible to get more shallow than this kind of "Me, ME ME" thing.
The working title of AS was The Strike, and the whole idea that these industrialists are Atlas and hold up the world is flat-out offensive to me. Reardon couldn't make his metal alone- he relied upon the miners, the smelters, the workers on his production line, just as they relied upon him to employ them. The idea behind the metal is only one component of its production. Dagny's family didn't build their railroad. Capital is only one component in the creation of a railroad.
So, let them strike, right? Unlike Rand's assumption- that without the Reardons, etc. the world will just collapse, the *reality* is someone else will step up with a new idea, something better than Reardon metal, and they will find people to help them make it. Someone else will open Francisco's mines and find people to help them mine it.
The whole "we're more important than everyone else, and therefore, the rules and laws of society don't apply to us," is, to my way of thinking, a foolish and dangerous thing to believe.
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I See What You Mean
Reality exists as an objective absolute—facts are facts, independent of man’s feelings, wishes, hopes or fears. [http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/arideas/intro_ob.html]
There are times when people cannot agree on what is fact and what is not, simply because of the complexity of human beings. As much as we would like to remove emotion from the equation, we cannot; it colors our understanding of what is fact just as much as anything else does.
The people in the Objectivist universe described in AS seem happy, though. I would be happy in that kind of society, too.
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I didn't find them happy at all. On the contrary, they seem pretty miserable most of the time, in spite of constant proclamations of happiness. They are full bitterness, scorn and derision. They are so caught up in their own sense of entitlement they fail to see how important the contributions of other people have been to them. When they talk about living, they seem to me the ability to do whatever one wants, no matter the cost to others, and the focus on money to the exclusion of any other motive appears empty and devoid of anything meaningful.
It seems a terribly empty existence to me.
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Galt and his followers, while honest about taking pleasure in making money, were also honest about what others do for them and about not taking advantage of others. Ellis Wyatt talked not only about making money, but also about making enough for his needs (no more or less) and for being fair in how he traded with those from whom he needed things. The others said similar things. The only ones who displayed a sense of entitlement were the people in the outer world who demanded more and more sacrifice from everyone but themselves. They are the ones who talked bitterly about what was owed to them and who scorned those who did not see things their way. Galt's folks, on the other hand, lived their own lives amongst like-minded people and left everyone else alone to live however they saw fit.
Of course, just like any ideal, it wouldn't work in real life, because life isn't that simple. But it's a mistake to simplify Galt's followers down to a mere opposite of those they called "the looters". That society is written as far more grey than blank & white.
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However, I disagree the industrialists don't share this sense of entitlement, and I think it is important not to discount their repeatedly expressed lack of interest in anything larger than themselves and their "enjoyment" of life. The whole idea behind the strike is one of entitlement, and if Rand's thesis of world collapsing is correct (and we can assume in the AS universe it is), then they abandon all the people who work for them, who helped them become successful, whom they claim to want to treat fairly. Ultimately, no one matters to the industrialists- except themselves.
While I think you are right to point out the Industrialists declare their desire to deal fairly with people from whom they needed things, I think it does bear noting they are very seldom including the people who work for them in this statement- usually they are referring to other industrialists. I believe Reardon is the exception. However, even if we assume they mean everyone, how do the actions of the characters bear out these claims?
Did Dagny even give a second thought to Scott Willers? Nope, she leaves him behind, in spite of his contributions to her success, because he wasn't an Atlas. When his mines are nationalized, Francisco blows them up. There are reasons, other than adherence to a "looter" philosophy, for 3rd world countries to nationalize their resources, but for Francisco, if he can't have the mines, he'll blow them up, no matter what the cost to the people who worked in the mines and relied upon their existence for their livelihood.
Galt's folks, on the other hand, lived their own lives amongst like-minded people and left everyone else alone to live however they saw fit.
Well, not exactly. If you've gotten to Galt's seemingly interminable radio address, you'll know what I mean.
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The argument the industrialists have for leaving the others behind is their willingness to blindly swallow what they were told by the leaders, rather than standing up to them. Dr. Stadler of the science institute is a good example; he knew what was being done in his name was wrong, but he was too spineless to stand against it. Now in reality, there will be little people who would be willing to stand up and fight--I suppose the various workers who abandoned the mills and the railroads in droves would fall into that category...nothing was said of their fate, except for the vagabond Dagny met on the Comet just before she crashed Galt's party--but in the fictional universe of AS, the people were lemmings who either went along or killed themselves (or were killed, like Wet Nurse), because they saw no other way to survive. In reality, I believe those who stood up to the powers that be would have been welcomed into Galt's clan. But like you said, Rand was trying to make a point, and to do that she painted things more extreme.
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In reality, I believe those who stood up to the powers that be would have been welcomed into Galt's clan.
Okay, there's a two-fold problem with this view. First, it is disproved by Scott Willers; he believed in Dagny, not the looters, but Dagny abandons him. The second problem is more abstract. The universe of AS is self-contained, and Rand believes it is an ideal. With this in mind, we cannot say "well, if this really happened Galt would act differently than he did in the book" because it did really happen in the fictional world Rand creates, and Galt exists in no other place. One has to deal with the text she has provided us, and he acts just as she wishes him to act. Had she thought Galt, et al. would ask sympathetic Prols to join them, she would have written it into the novel. There is no mention of the fate of these workers because, in Rand's world, they don't really count.
There are a lot of premises one must accept to feel Galt, et al. are justified in their strike and subsequent establishment of a Dictatorship of the Verbose. For instance, Ragnar Whatshisname, the Norwegian pirate decided that income taxes are not just, and therefore, he has a right to steal from other people who aren't fighting against an income tax in order to reimburse the wealthy folks who pay income taxes. Again with the entitlement, and even if we assume income taxes are theft (which I will not because all of the industrialists would have benefited from programs paid for with income tax dollars- roads, public works, schools, etc), the wealthy aren't the only people to pay them, but you don't see Ragnar setting up bank accounts for everyone who pays income tax- just for his extra-super special friends.
AS contains this Superman idea, which is inherently fascist (note all the existing states have looter governments, all of which are known as "People's States," which indicates a form of Socialism), and it's very unpalatable for me.
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Which is quite kind, all things considered, even in light of the fact that they would do it as part of seeking their own pleasure, not out of a sense of moral obligation to the weak. The industrialists could have chosen to not rebuild society at all and left the others, Willers included, in the dark ages their lack of initiative had brought about.
I don't have to agree with all of the premises of their stance to feel they are right in their strike. I don't believe income taxes are theft, for all of the reasons you stated. But I agree with their decision to walk away from a society that wanted them to cut themselves down to placate people who had no desire to work as hard, who did not recognize their achievements as such, unless they would personally benefit from them, and who expected them to carry people who were too spineless to stand up for themselves.
Of course, being a novel, it is idealistic. In real life, the looters of the government would not suffer the consequences of their dishonesty, nor would they have traumatic epiphanies of just how depraived they were the way Jim Taggart did in the end. My main problem with the book is the pollyanna notion that justice will ultimately prevail and those who are evil will get what's coming to them. The book would have been more believable, if those who had left society had stayed away and lived peaceful lives in their hidden community while the rest of the world continued on its separate path.
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However, it's not so much about whether or not the strike is justified in the Randian universe, but whether Rand allows me to suspend disbelief enough to accept her universe. Since she isn't just writing a novel, she's elucidating a philosophy, she has to convince me her philosophy is right or at least reasonable to justify the strike.
Since I, personally, cannot divorce the work from it's historical context (as a critique and response to Socialism), it becomes impossible for me to accept the Objectivist universe. I think the world is full of contradictions; I know for a fact people who hold leftist political beliefs are not "looters" nor are they unwilling to work hard. I don't accept the elevation of selfishness to a virtue; I don't buy the idea that altruism is motivated by either selfishness or fear, and I don't think things like welfare or income taxes are akin to stealing. I have to at least be able to believe that the accomplishments of Dagny, Francisco and Reardon were the result of their own, personal merit, and I don't, particularly in the case of Dagny and Francisco.
What is interesting to me about AS is that Rand seems oblivious to the fact that her protagonists feel just as entitled to the labor of others as their antagonists. They all completely ignore the contributions other people (and the state for that matter) have made to their success, just as they don't recognize the benefits they will directly or indirectly derive from contributing to something beyond their own, personal gratification.
Personally, I don't feel it's a kindness for Galt, et al. to return to society and establish a fascist utopia, and I think it's significant that Dagny's first act as part of this strike is to kill a man and feel absolutely nothing.
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I don't agree with a lot of Randian philosophy,( I dare say you wouldn't as well, as Ayn Rand argued that photography was not art and should not be called art) but I still think the book stands alone to reward drive and intelligence. I glad you are reading it! It's great timing.
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It's interesting that I have read very little fiction this year, but this fiction is making more sense to me than some of the memoirs I have read!