Atlas Summer: Part III: Chapter X: In the Name of the Best Within Us
Atlas Summer: Part III: Chapter X: In the Name of the Best Within US
Pages: 1147 – 1168
Summary: Dagny, Hank, and Ragnar break into the secret facility and save John Galt. Dagny confronts a guard and gives him a philosophical ultimatum. At least that’s what Rand probably intended. Unfortunately, it comes across like yet another dogmatic Abbot and Costello routine.
After saving John Galt, they fly back to Galt’s Gulch. Kay Ludlow reads Aristotle, Judge Narragansett works on rewriting the Constitution, and Hank and Francisco discuss the creation of new locomotives and the high rates Dagny will charge. (Women, am I right?)
Finally, John Galt prepares the path to re-enter the “outside world” by drawing a dollar sign on the desolate ground.
Sorry, this never stops being funny.
Lest we forget, Eddie Willers got stuck on a train in the middle of nowhere. After numerous frustrations, he says the titular line of the chapter amidst yet another hissy fit.
Reflections: It’s been a long turgid road, but we finally made it. We finished Atlas Shrugged before it finished us. There’s not much to say except that this was the most overrated piece of garbage since The Phantom Menace. At least the Phantom Menace had a pod race and a decent light saber battle. If anything, Atlas Shrugged works as a primer of how not to write a novel. Even leaving aside Rand’s childish philosophy and her bloated ego, the novel is entirely lacking in characterization and drama. One needs those things in novel writing if the novelist doesn’t want to put the reader to sleep.
The philosophy itself is a failed attempt at cod-Nietzscheanism: Galt as the heroic Übermensch beyond the ken of ordinary looter morality; ferociously anti-democratic; and achingly nostalgic for Greco-Roman classical ideals. (I would compare Ayn Rand to Leni Riefenstahl, Nazi propagandist and filmmaker, except that Riefenstahl had talent.) In the end, Objectivism comes across like a gilded Satanism. Like Satanism, Objectivism fuels a hackneyed rebelliousness. Extolling the virtues of greed and selfishness may sound badass at first blush, but this is just worshipping gold instead of Satan. (At least professed Satanists like Marilyn Manson have talent.)
What do you expect from a “philosopher” who names herself as a unit of South African currency?
Objectivism is as badass as Pat Boone donning a leather jacket and doing Metallica covers. George Carlin puts it another way. On the topic of feminism, he states, “Changing your name isn’t a radical act. Castrating a man in a parking lot is a radical act.” When one owns media conglomerates, has Congressional leaders in their pocket, and possesses extreme wealth, it is rather silly having one think of oneself as a rebel.
In the end, what Atlas Shrugged needed was a good editor … or two.
Finally, the calls for freedom and personal pleasure eventually lead to things like Dave Foley’s “Groovy Teacher.”
If Objectivism is about anything, it’s about doing heroin and having affairs with 18 year olds, or very mature 17 year olds. That would explain the behavior of Silvio Berlusconi and Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
The band Karma Rocket from the TV series Party Down sings their hit “My Struggle,” voicing the pain and anguish of Objectivists in their struggle to act like greedy selfish babies. What better way to end an analysis of this horrendous book?
Quotes:
- “Calmly and impersonally, she, who would have hesitated to fire at an animal, pulled the trigger and fired straight at the heart of a man who wanted to exist without the responsibility of consciousness.” Makes me think of that Austrian vegetarian and animal lover who had serious deficiencies in people skills.
- “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade …” Good to know Objectivists are in favor of slavery, child pornography, and heroin trafficking. If it’s what the market demands …
Atlas Summer: Part III: Chapter IX: The Generator
Atlas Summer: Part III: Chapter IX: The Generator
Pages: 1126 – 1146
Summary: And now … torture! John Galt, having refused the entreaties of shyster hooligan Mr. Thompson, gets stripped and strapped to Dr. Ferris’s electrical contraption. The torture is horrendous until the machine breaks and the idiot operating it doesn’t know how to fix it.
In other news, Dr. Robert Stadler heads back to Iowa where the Xylophone is under control of effeminate fascist goofball Cuffy Meigs. Words are exchanged, a melee ensues, and KA-BOOM!
Reflections: The torture scene comes across as dramatically puzzling and unintentionally funny. What kind of sociopath tortures for laughs? Oh, right …
The humor in the scene throws a giant monkey-wrench into the narrative’s tone. Granted, the electrical apparatus breaking down proves Rand’s point, but to use the phrase of libertarians, “at what cost”? Galt, the muscular genius hero guy, gets tortured by fat looter morons. What’s so dramatic about that? The characters, such broad caricatures of humanity, sap the scene of momentum and give it all the depth of a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Hell, Rocky and Bullwinkle had better plotting, better characterization, and better jokes than this banal horseshit.
The only real explanation for this nutty scene is Rand needed to make John Galt into the book’s Christ Figure. A rather odd thing considering Rand’s rabid atheism, although not that odd since cults of personality adopt the liturgical features of religion to suit the star’s egomania. (Yet another similarity Ms. Rosenbaum shares with Uncle Joe.)
“Aw, come on, John, be our Economic Dictator. Pretty please!”
For a former seminary student, Stalin cleans up quite well.
Compare this to the torture scene in 1984, written by British Socialist George Orwell. In the novel, dissident functionary Winston Smith faces torture from O’Brien. Winston thought O’Brien was also rebelling against Big Brother, when in actuality O’Brien belonged to the Inner Party. Unlike the rotund dimwits in Atlas Shrugged, O’Brien uses a rat-cage that he attaches to Winston’s face. No electricity involved. It’s sustainable and has a small carbon footprint. It’s also effective as hell. Perhaps Mr. Thompson had difficulty attaining rat-cage-face-masks from Airstrip One, considering the United States is in transportation crisis in the novel?
In the end, Winston confesses and thus, 1984 becomes tragedy. Dr. Ferris’s shenanigans just seem idiotic, especially since it is in aid of making John Galt their Economic Dictator and solving all their problems. It’s a scene diametrically opposed to that of 1984. 1984 is a critically acclaimed novel that attained its rightful place in the Western Canon, easily making 100 Best lists without breaking a sweat. Atlas Shrugged, on the other hands, required market manipulation by hordes of crackpot cultists buying books in bulk in a facetious attempt at popularity. That’s just sad. But so is having the inability to break the $2 million dollar mark on opening weekend and coming in at a lame-ass #14. In Glengarry Glen Ross, Blake challenges the real estate salesmen to “Always Be Closing.” Second place is a set of steak knives, third prize is your fired! What’s 14th?
Like the Left Behind series, Atlas Shrugged isn’t literature for the ages, it’s only appeal lies with a sliver of the population that buys into its nutjob theories and infantile views of economics. In a word: marginal. Here’s another one: Inconsequential.
Call me anything you want, Objectivists. I’ll make sure to have a couch handy for you to jump on.
At some point, Scientology and Objectivism become indistinguishable.
One chapter left and we’re done with this overwrought literary abortion. Huzzah!
Quotes:
- “There was nothing beyond the lighted strip but the emptiness of the prairies of Iowa.”
- “He [Cuffy Meigs] wore a tight, semi-military tunic and leather leggings; the flesh of his neck bulged over the edge of his collar; his black curls were matted with sweat.” Jeremy Clarkson?
- “We want ideas – or else!”
- “Had enough?” snarled Ferris, when the current went off. “Yes, end this book NOW! Oh, you were talking to John Galt.”
- “Don’t kill him! Don’t dare kill him! If he dies, we die!” Whew, good thing somebody explained the stakes in the scene or I wouldn’t have understood what was going in. Way to not insult the intelligence of your readers, Ayn.
- “Galt burst out laughing.”
- “Galt was watching them; his glance was too austerely perceptive.” Or if someone with actual talent rewrote the sentence: “Galt watched them; he perceived them with a muscular austerity.” Seriously, Ayn, use the money you made from The Fountainhead and take some creative writing courses at Columbia or the New School or something. Your utter lack of talent is repellent, lazy, and childish. “I’m here on a mission of mercy. If it was up to me, I’d fire your fucking ass.”
Atlas Summer: Part III: Chapter VIII: The Egoist
“You do not become an author just by using the language to call a cabinet minister unfit for office.”
“There are writers who can express in a mere twenty pages things I sometimes need two whole lines for.”
Karl Kraus (1874 – 1936)
Reflections: The nature of fictional storytelling requires emotional and narrative pay-offs. Starting with John Galt’s speech, Atlas Shrugged moves into the dénouement. This is where all the deck-stacking and intellectual dishonesty of Rand’s project reveal the flaws and fractures within her attempted “philosophy.”
While all the characters get shuffled into place, John Galt prepares to escape the clutches of the evil looters. The looters, in their idiotic desperation, call for John Galt’s help. The tables are turned and the looters are revealed as having a bankrupt philosophy.
When Galt is finally detained by Thompson’s men in a section of the Wayne-Falkland Hotel brimming with military men, Galt still refuses to help. Despite Galt’s two-hour speech, Mr. Thompson still doesn’t get it.
In this exchange between Galt and Thompson, we get to the essence of Atlas Shrugged, the very nubbin for why it exists in the first place.
“Okay, I’ll tell you. You want me to become Economic Dictator?” [Galt]
“Yes!” [Thompson]
“And you’ll obey any order I give?”
“Implicitly!”
“Then start by abolishing all income taxes.”
“Oh, no!” screamed Mr. Thompson, leaping to his feet. “We couldn’t do that! That’s … that’s not the field of production. That’s the field of distribution. How would we pay government employees?”
“Fire your government employees.”
“Oh, no! That’s politics! That’s not economics! You can’t interfere with politics! You can’t have everything!”
Galt crossed his legs on the hassock, stretching himself more comfortably in the brocaded armchair. “Want to continue this discussion? Or do you get the point?”
Do you hear that? It’s the sound of a balloon deflating. This alleged confrontation distills the philosophies of both camps, yet it’s so … so … anticlimactic. Galt is so perfect, smart, and heroic; Thompson is so conniving, weak, and contradictory. It is the immovable Idealist versus the unstoppable force of the Looter Hordes.
Narrative sterility aside, the essence of Objectivism is now revealed as Rand’s distaste for the income tax. The fucking income tax! I read over one thousand pages for this! Seriously! (I feel like James Taggart, all exclamation points and apoplexy.) Nevertheless, let’s take a step back, since I don’t want to give myself an aneurysm, least of all for this book.
Yes, yes, the gulags and purges were terrible, but look! Don’t you see! Their taking away my income!
Like anyone who has had to pay taxes, I understand the resentment and hatred people level at the Internal Revenue Service. Money earned through hard work, etc. But to write a 1100 page book against the injustice of the income tax is sort of silly. Like building a cathedral to why Justin Bieber sucks. It’s ridiculous and rather petty. Added to this is the Randroid perception that this is the Greatest Novel of All Time. (It would be, if you’ve never read any other book. One would also think it the Greatest Novel of All Time as a natural and logical opinion. Don’t worry, Objectivists, Scientologists hold the same opinion about Battlefield Earth. They’re both good at buying in bulk and rigging literature polls. But Objectivism is totally, totally not a cult. ***Stifled laughter***)
The trick is buying the books in bulk. Also works when selling subprime mortgages as loans.
Ironically, Rand’s philosophical novel resembles the logorrhea of Dave Sim, except Sim has talent as a comic book artist. Ayn Rand (neé Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum) is just another paranoid megalomaniac who changed her name to sound tougher to her adversaries. Wait a second … paranoid megalomaniac … name change … sounds a lot like this guy.
“Complain about the income tax all you want, I’ll be pummeling the Nazis into a slurry and sending the first man into space … with the occasional famine and purge. Have to think of the bottom line in all this. It’s not personal, it’s business.”
To adapt Stalin’s quote to the parlance of our time, “One unemployed person is a tragedy, a million unemployed people is a statistic.”
When You Shrug Into the Abyss, the Abyss Shrugs Back At You.
Well, after twenty years and twenty million dollars of his own money, film producer and Galtian superman John Aglialoro finally dragged Atlas Shrugged: Part One into theaters three weeks ago, to a shower of critical brickbats and universal audience indifference. Now, Aglialoro is whining that politically biased film critics poisoned the market with their non-Objective reviews that harped on such minor issues as laughable CGI effects, wooden performances, and a screenplay comprised almost entirely of discussions of metallurgy and corporate governance. In response, this titan of cinema and gym equipment manufacturing is threating to deprive the world of the two sequels no one was asking for. Some churlish sorts might claim that the free market has spoken, but that would ignore the tyrannical, market-perverting power of Todd McCarthy from the Hollywood Reporter.
Atlas Summer: Part III: Chapter VIII: The Egotist
Part III: Chapter VIII: The Egotist
I Blow Minds.
Summary:
After John Galt’s speech melts the airwaves, the looter elite at the Wayne-Falkland lose their collective shit. They bicker and freak out until Mr. Thompson declares that Galt is just the man to right the listing ship of state. It turns out Mr. Thompson is a pragmatist above all, and willing to overlook all of Galt’s windy “theory” in order to exploit his clearly singular mind. So the government starts a campaign to find Galt and give him the power of economic dictator. Meanwhile, Galt’s incendiary rhetoric and the continual collapse of the economy lead to an upsurge of violence across the country, as the people strike back against government goons and their civilian lackeys.
After trying to lure Galt out of hiding with strategic loud-speaker begging, the government finally nabs him by following Dagny to his apartment in New York. Of course, he’d been hiding in plain sight as a common laborer at Taggart Transcontinental, with his own apartment filled with a hidden science lab. As soon as Galt sees Dagny, he knows that the feds are just behind, so he makes her swear that she’ll disavow him when they come. If Thompson and company think that Galt cares for Dagny, they’ll threaten to harm her if he doesn’t help keep their failing system afloat. Heavily armed guards so up, Dagny points an accusing finger at Galt, and he’s spirited away to the Wayne-Falkland, but not before his lab self-destructs.
Across a starving land, government buildings burn as looters and home-grown militias vie for power. In New York, a parade of luminaries try to talk John Galt into taking over economic planning. Mr. Thompson offers riches and power, Dr. Ferris threatens to euthanize everyone over 60 years old, and Dr. Stadler just blubbers all over the place. All the while, Galt holds fast against these entreaties: if they order him to sit at a desk that says “ECONOMIC DICATOR,” he’ll do it, but they can’t force him to think for them.
Dagny plays her part as a new convert to Mr. Thompson’s expedient vision and, in order to make sure that the government doesn’t just kill Galt, advises the Head of State that Galt can be convinced, given enough incentive and time. Thompson attempts to force Galt’s hand by holding a massive dinner at, where else, the Wayne-Falkland to announce Galt’s cooperation and the creation of the John Galt Plan. On the night of the event, Dagny watches the assembled reptiles smarm their way around the dais, giving windy, contradictory speeches before Galt’s final remarks. In front of a national television audience, Galt jukes out of the way long enough for everyone to see that his ‘secretary’ has a gun pointed at him, and says directly into the camera, “Get the hell out of my way!”
Reflections: Wait, are there really less than a hundred pages left? Praise Xenu! There IS light at the end of the tunnel! I’ve honestly forgotten that there was a time in my life when I wasn’t reading this book. Who is president? Have we landed on Mars yet? What’s with these young people and their saggy pants and raps music?
Quotes:
“‘That wasn’t real, was it?’ said Mr. Thompson.” That head of state never misses a trick.
“The attendants of a hospital in Illinois showed no astonishment when a man was brought in, beaten up by his elder brother, who had supported him all his life: the younger man had screamed at the older, accusing him of selfishness and greed–just as the attendants of a hospital in New York City showed no astonishment at the case of a woman who came in with a fractured jaw: she had been slapped in the face by a total stranger, who had heard her ordering her five-year-old son to give his best toy to the children of neighbors.” So apparently the looter method of coercion through guilt-trips is giving way to the Galtian ethic of random violence. Incidentally, that ‘best toys to the neighbor kids’ vignette is a reference to the primal scene of Ayn Rand’s philosophical development. Apparently, her parents made a similar demand of her when they were living in Russia. Needless to say, she never got over it.
“‘I will perform any motion you order me to perform. If you order me to move into the office of an Economic Dictator, I’ll move into it. If you order me to sit at a desk, I will sit at it. If you order me to issue a directive, I will issue the directive you order me to issue.’
‘Oh, but I don’t know what directives to issue!’
There was a long pause.
‘Well?’ said Galt. ‘What are your orders?’
‘I want you to save the economy of the country!’
‘I don’t know how to save it.’
‘I want you to find a way!’
‘I don’t know how to find it.’
‘I want you to think!’
‘How will your gun make me do that, Mr. Thompson?'” Physical assaults and passive aggression, the two mightiest weapons in the Objectivist arsenal, apparently.
“‘The John Galt Plan,’ Wesley Mouch was saying, ‘will reconcile all conflicts. It will protect the property of the rich and give a greater share to the poor. It will cut down the burden of your taxes and provide you with more government benefits. It will lower prices and raise wages. It will give more freedom to the individual and strengthen the bonds of collective obligations. It will combine the efficiency of free enterprise with the of a planned economy.'” Alright, Ayn, that’s a pretty good distillation of the sort of political rhetoric that has led to record deficits, record spending, and all-time low income tax rates.
Atlas Summer: Part III: Chapter VII: “This is John Galt Speaking”
“Well, this certainly looks like a lot of words, in record time, I’m very impressed…Unfortunately, I am also disgusted. This is incoherent drivel! This is a total redo, and I’m assuming I need it right away.” — J. Peterman
J. Peterman or John Galt? Only his hairdresser knows for sure.
Part III: Chapter VII: “This is John Galt Speaking”
Reflections:
Well, that was pretty much exactly what I expected…and yet, so much worse. Karl aptly covered the dramatic and literary failings of “the speech,” so I won’t shoot the broad side of that particular barn. I’m also not going to attempt a point by point refutation of Rand/Galt’s legion of philosophical failings. I may not have a life, but I do have to eat, sleep and move my bowels for the next month, so that’s right out. John Rawls went through all the trouble of writing A Theory of Justice, after all. Just go read that.
Go ahead, it shouldn’t take long. The whole thing is probably shorter than Galt’s speech.
Among the myriad logical and historical fallacies on display in the Galt speech (the Dark Ages were dark because of a strike by intellectuals? For realsies?), the most annoying for me is Rand’s deeply misinformed conception of scientific and technological progress. Rand seems to live in the grammar school universe where every major innovation on the road of human progress is the result of a single individual applying their brilliance to a particular problem.
Theodoric of York knew that he shouldn’t have just slapped leeches on his patients, but his brain was on strike against the Catholic Church.
Eli Whitney “inventing” the cotton gin. Samuel Morse “inventing” the telegraph. In reality, of course, no invention in the history of humanity has a single author. Whitney and Morse, as well as Edison, Marconi, and every other famous inventor in human history, made their names and fortunes by innovating within an existing line of research being carried out across the years and by countless individuals. More importantly, their inventions came in the context of all the human knowledge that came before them. As brilliant as he was, Thomas Edison could not have invented an iPod. Not because he wasn’t smart enough, but because he didn’t have access to the corpus of collective human scientific advancement that occurred in the 20th century. Isaac Newton may have been the smartest man in human history, and he spent thirty years trying to turn lead into gold because he didn’t know what the hell an atom was. Not to mention the fact that he whiffed big-time on that whole “relativity” deal.
Isaac Newton: Father of modern physics and alchemist.
At one point in Galt’s speech, Galt challenges his lumpen audience to imagine what would happen if they had to survive by themselves in the untamed wild without the guiding intelligence of their betters. I’m guessing they’d do just about as well as Hank Rearden or Johannes Gutenberg: they’d scratch out a living for a while on grubs and tree bark, then die of exposure. Hank isn’t making any Rearden metal out of leaves and rainwater. Even more ridiculous is Galt/Rand’s parallel claim that corporate employees owe the same debt of gratitude to their bosses as the rest of us owe the inventive geniuses who make our comfortable lives possible.
The Cotton Gin: NOT invented by Eli Whitney.
In 1957, when Atlas Shrugged was first published, the President of the Ford Motor Company was Henry Ford II. Now, whatever claim to genius that Henry Ford Senior may have had (it’s not like the dude actually invented the automobile: he simply devised a more efficient way of manufacturing someone else’s invention), it didn’t necessarily extend to his son. Henry Ford Junior had the good fortune to be born the son of an industrial magnate. His crowning achievement as President was the introduction of the Edsel. Yet according to Rand, the employees of Ford, who significantly differed from the President of their company only by an accident of birth, owed him their entire devotion and should have been happy with any wage he chose to offer them. Every human being benefits from the collective intellectual and physical efforts of every other person, both past and present. Now, Rand might be willing to concede that point, but still hold that these efforts and intellectual products must be traded on an open market by individuals. Fair enough, but that’s not how Rand conceives the creation of human knowledge in the Galt speech. Instead, she posits an alternate universe where every human mind operates in a locked, lightless cell, uninfluenced by any other intelligence. Rand can’t acknowledge the self-evident fact of intellectual interconnectedness even when it wouldn’t necessarily invalidate her view on the correct way to structure an economy. Once again, we’re confronted by the fact that what Rand is peddling in the seemingly endless pages of Atlas Shrugged isn’t philosophy, it’s pathology.
Without the visionary genius of Henry Ford Junior, we never would have had the chance to buy the Edsel.
Atlas Summer: Part III: Chapter VII: “This is John Galt Speaking”
John Galt opines on the merits of Objectivism to the general public. He is given much positive affirmation.
Part III: Chapter VII: “This is John Galt Speaking”
Pages: 1000 – 1069
Pages of John Galt’s Speech: 1009 – 1069
Summary:
James Taggart drags Dagny along with him to an important meeting. All around the country, placards and radio announcements notify the public that Mr. Thompson will address the global situation on November 22nd.
When Dagny enters the radio station, the various straw men paraded before the reader in previous chapters meet her.
Mr. Thompson is about to give his speech to a worldwide audience when, suddenly, all the radio stations get jammed by a force beyond the understanding of looter idiots.
And then John Galt gives a speech.
It’s really, really, really long.
Here Mr. Smokestoomuch, aka John Galt, goes to a travel agent.
Reflections:
HOVE (adj.)
Descriptive of the expression seen on the face of one person in the presence of another who clearly isn’t going to stop talking for a very long time.
The Deeper Meaning of Liff, by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd.
I’ll be honest; the notorious John Galt Speech was one of the reasons for my interest in the book. Much like The Phantom Menace, I wanted to see what all the hype was about. And much like the Phantom Menace, Atlas Shrugged suffers from many similarities:
- Both focus on the issues of taxation.
- Both have terrible writing, pacing, characterization, and plot development.
- Both possess a fandoms whose fanaticism is in direct proportion to the work’s suckitude. A = A. (The degree of an Objectivist’s fanatical devotion to Atlas Shrugged = How much Atlas Shrugged sucks. Read the book. The logic is self-evident.)
First, I want to offer any Objectivist out there to a simple challenge. Objectivists like challenges, right? They don’t back down from them like looter cowards? Then I’ll comment on the proportion of John Galt’s Speech to the rest of the novel. Finally, I’ll compare Atlas Shrugged to another philosophical novel, Juliette, by the Marquis de Sade.
A Challenge to Objectivists:
Hedley Lamarr: My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.
Taggart: God darnit, Mr. Lamarr, you use your tongue prettier than a twenty dollar whore.
Blazing Saddles (1974, Mel Brooks)
John Galt’s Speech is really long and explains in excruciating detail the particulars of the Objectivist philosophy. My challenge: Take it out.
Matt and I have already shown that Rand has made these points repeatedly in the novel. Why one more time? The goal of free market economics is efficiency and speed of capital turnover. The Speech embodies an inefficiency that slows down the pace of the novel to sub-glacial speed. One can easily read Atlas Shrugged and get the same explanation of the philosophy without John Galt’s Speech.
Unfortunately, removing the Speech from the novel exposes a few things to Objective Reality™:
- Rand’s rank amateurism as a novelist.
- Rand’s lack of examples and evidence to support her claims. All this talk of “savages” and “cannibals” and “mystics of the spirit” and “mystics of muscle.” In the words of Seinfeld: “Who are these people?” The overall vagueness of the speech really irritated me. Surely a philosopher of such genius as Ayn Rand could cite examples and counter-examples backing up her philosophy? You know who also doesn’t cite examples? Mystics. Hell, even the Marquis de Sade gave examples from the real world in his philosophical novels.
- Rand’s Jupiter-sized inferiority complex. (For someone with a monstrous ego and a conviction of her own genius, wouldn’t it be better to clearly state the philosophy of Objectivism once? Animal Farm and Brave New World explained their philosophical perspectives in far fewer pages.)
- Rand’s mistaking quantity as an aspect of quality. (See above re: Animal Farm.) Drowning the reader in bloat and poorly edited fiction just devalues the work as a whole. Rand even acknowledges the fact: The three-foot tall dollar sign made of pure gold in Galt’s Gulch. Francisco d’Anconia says it was a joke. The Speech – in a novel littered with multi-page speeches – can be seen as nothing other than a joke.
- Rand’s unquestioning fanatical fans who, superficial differences aside, behave no better than the jackbooted thugs associated with Stalinism, Fascism, and all other mass movements.
- Rand’s desire to convert others to her philosophy: By this far along in the novel, one falls into two camps. The first are adherents to Objectivism. Each speech reinforces the philosophy, Objectivist nodding knowingly, as he or she basks in the golden light of their One True Faith. The second camp are full of doubters, skeptics, and people who like well-written fiction. Much like Jerry Falwell’s comments after 9/11, Rand’s controversial statements could persuade someone to become a card-carrying member of the Communist Party simply out of spite. “Yes, Communism is awful. Yes, the Gulags are reprehensible and inhuman. Yes, planned economies have numerous flaws. But seriously, fuck her!” This response isn’t anomalous. People react this way in numerous other situations, especially when morally duplicitous and mentally questionable authority figures (spiritual, temporal, or otherwise) say something really stupid and infuriating. Heck, I’m sure Objectivists have reacted similarly to my assertions and observations. But one can understand and explain a philosophy without accepting it. That’s called “critical thought.” It’s also called “having a brain.”
The Mathematical Proof of Atlas Shrugged’s Galactic Suckitude:
Wednesday: I don’t want to be in the pageant.
Gary: Don’t you want to help me realize my vision?
Wednesday: Your work is puerile and under-dramatized. You lack any sense of structure, character and the Aristotelian unities.
Gary: Young lady, I am getting just a tad tired of your attitude problem.
Addams Family Values (1993, Barry Sonnenfeld; screenplay by Paul Rudnick)
One of the foundations of Objectivism involves making assertions based on physical evidence. A method to attain evidence involves the discipline of mathematics. Let’s use math to prove how much Atlas Shrugged sucks. Only tyrants and looter second-raters deny the power of mathematics. (That and people still embracing the laughable idiocy known as the Laffer Curve.) 2+2=5. I don’t think so.
Let’s look at the percentage of John Galt’s Speech in relation to the novel.
Percentage of John Galt’s Speech to Chapter VII: 87%
Percentage of John Galt’s Speech to Atlas Shrugged: 5%
(Someone with more heroic literary stamina will have to come up with the percentage of all speeches to Atlas Shrugged as a whole. I can only recommend ingesting horse tranquilizers and watching installments of the Saw series when commencing with that experiment.)
Every time she has a character recite a multi-page speech, she devalues her literary worth. Seriously, I understood her philosophy the first time. No need to beat a dead horse. Ayn Rand doesn’t act like a philosopher; she acts like a hectoring lunatic.
The upcoming release of Atlas Shrugged, Part I is seen by some as a great triumph. But John Galt’s Speech was released as a concert film. Here’s a clip:
Juliette and Atlas Shrugged, or “Wow, these characters sure give horrendously long monologues.”
Atlas Shrugged isn’t the one novel where characters give really, really, really long monologues explicating an allegedly profound philosophy. By comparison, let’s examine Juliette (1797 – 1801) by Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade. It’s a doorstopper like Atlas Shrugged, comprising of six parts, and 1193 pages, a few more than Atlas Shrugged’s 1168.
Needless to say, Sade has a much more notorious and maligned reputation than Rand. Unlike Rand, Sade espouses a coherent philosophy of brutality and power. Unlike Rand, Sade can write well. (We’ll get to that later, with some choice tidbits from John Galt’s Speech.)
In Juliette, we meet the eponymous heroine, a greedy atheist hell-bent to accrue pleasure, wealth, and power. Juliette is a ferocious figure with insatiable appetites untainted by such looter-ish concepts like pain or fear or guilt. How did she become this way? By listening to and giving incredibly long philosophical monologues.
The novel begins with our plucky protagonist being raised in the Panthemont convent. One of her teachers is Madame Delbéne. Following a series of saucy interactions, Madame Delbéne gives young Juliette a précis of Sadean philosophy lasting seven pages. Long speeches become de rigueur. Ironically, for all the similarities between Sadean and Objectivist philosophies, people see Sade as an Antichrist, rarely read and more often demonized. Rand, by contrast, is held in the highest esteem, even by conservative Christians, who apparently have no qualms about her Richard Dawkins-esque strident atheism.
Not to be outdone, Sade has a philosophical monologue of over 100 pages, dwarfing John Galt’s verbal spasms. Sade’s writing talent is undisputed, since most criticisms regarding his characterizations and plotting do not apply to 18th century standards of literature. Expect long philosophical monologues when reading Sade. He is not Nicholas Sparks nor Jodi Picoult, although all three relish in killing their characters.
But Rand should be held to account by the standards of 20th century writing. John Galt’s Speech was one long harangue against those opposing modernization. Yet Rand’s novel reads like a bastard stepchild of a 18th century philosopher and a cheap-ass romance novel … and the results are worse than both. The bad result stems from Rand’s sub-standard talent using the English language.
Want proof? I’d like to see an Objectivist apologist explain this elementary malapropism:
“You who lost the concept of a right, you who swing in impotent evasiveness between the claim that rights are a gift from God, a supernatural gift to be taken on faith, or the claim that right’s are a gift of society, to be broken at its arbitrary whim – the source of man’s rights is not divine law or congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A – and Man is Man. Rights are conditions of existence required by man’s nature for his proper survival. … Any group, any gang, any nation that attempts to negate man’s rights, is wrong, which means: is evil, which means: is anti-life.”
Or Ayn Rand said: “A culture is made — or destroyed — by its articulate voices.” The quote above shows how utterly inarticulate Rand is with her philosophy. Content aside, she builds this excerpt on a false premise. What’s the false premise? Not knowing the difference between the multiple meanings of the word right. There is right used in terms of morality (right vs. wrong). There is a right in terms of the law (right to bear arms, speedy trial, illegal search and seizure, etc.). These definitions are not the same. Did Rand mistakenly attribute these two different meanings as contradictions? (Can’t have any of those in Objectivist craniums, now can we?)
Lay off the speed, Ayn, check your sources and do your research!
In the words of Dark Helmet, “So, Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb.”
I’m sorry, but if you can’t understand the basics of American English, it’s hard to take this much-hyped philosophy seriously anymore. Rand not knowing the operations of her adopted tongue smacks of looter second rater laziness. Then again, laziness in writing has been a constant refrain of these posts.
“Mr. Madison, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
Listen chaps, here’s a chance for us all to learn something. Carry on, John:
- “A leaf cannot be a stone at the same time, it cannot be all red and all green at the same time, it cannot freeze and burn at the same time.” John Galt has never touched dry ice.
- “Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification.” Whither Russell’s Paradox? “Suppose that every public library has to compile a catalog of all its books. The catalog is itself one of the library’s books, but while some librarians include it in the catalog for completeness, others leave it out, as being self-evident.” In a logical and non-contradictory way, where would John Galt put the catalog of all the library’s books?
- “The symbol of all relationships among such men, the moral symbol for human beings, is the trader.”
- “The name of his monstrous absurdity is Original Sin.” John Galt, Mormon. “We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgressions.” (“The Articles of Faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” by Joseph Smith)
- “The word that has destroyed you is ‘sacrifice.’”
- “If you surrender your power to perceive, if you accept the switch of your standard from the objective to the collective and wait for mankind to tell you what to think …” Foul! Objective is not the opposite of collective. Objective/Subjective; Collective/Individual. Yet another false premise of Objectivism by Ayn Rand, sub-par writer who doesn’t understand how English works.
- “When men render their virtues to the approximate, then evil acquires the force of an absolute, when loyalty to an unyielding purpose is dropped by the virtuous, it’s picked up by scoundrels – and you get the indecent spectacle of a cringing, bargaining, traitorous good and a self-righteously uncompromising evil.” Sounds like a succinct description of what happens whenever Democrats and Republicans sit down together “in the spirit of bipartisanship.”
- “Stop supporting your own destroyers.” That would make a nice sign for Madison marchers and Jasmine Revolutionaries.
- “We will open the gates of our city to those who deserve to enter, a city of smokestacks, pipe lines, orchards, markets, and inviolate homes.” Those who deserve to enter? Is this a new society or a Streisand concert? All this talk of exclusivity makes Objectivism fit the criteria of crazy cult. Only Mormons can enter the Salt Lake City temple, only Christians go to Heaven, only devout Muslim men get 72 virgins, etc.
Atlas Summer: Part III: Chapter IV: Anti-Life
Atlas Summer: Part III: Chapter IV: Anti-Life
Chapter Four: Ayn Rand and Edward Albee have a boring, long-winded baby.
Summary: Chapter Four finds the unfortunate reader thrust back into the unpleasant company of James Taggart. He presides over a grim collection of government cutthroats and foreign dignitaries all celebrating the impeding nationalization of D’aconia Copper by the soon-to-be People’s State of Argentina. This move will somehow give Taggart unprecedented power and wealth, even though the world economy is collapsing. Of course, none of this makes poor Jimmy happy, because he’s a joyless sack of failure. We also learn that, even though he’s obscenely rich, he’s not the right KIND of rich for Rand: it doesn’t really love money, after all. He’s driven by self-loathing and resentment of his betters, nothing more. Back at home, James is confronted by his closet-Randian wife Cherryl, who is in the painful process of realizing that all the things she admired about Taggart and Taggart Transcontinental were the work of Dagny, and that James is a resentful, whiny freeloader. They fight, she apologizes to Dagny for cursing her out at the wedding and has a sister-to-sister-in-law chat about the virtues of selfish love, and to top it all off, she comes home to find James in bed with Lillian Taggart! They fight again, James smacks her in the mouth, and Cherryl flees into the night. After a painful trek through the ruins of New York City, finding herself alone and trapped in a world run by vampires, where achievement and talent will be crushed and exploited, Cherryl ends the chapter by fleeing from the “altruistic” hectoring of a social worker into the welcoming embrace of the (East?) river.
Don’t do it, Cherryl! There’s a Gulch! A Gulch!
Observations: In case you were somehow craving further explications of Rand’s theory of love, this chapter is lousy with ’em. It’s interesting, because while some (okay, most) of Rand’s arguments are self-refuting (art can only be appreciated by the artist, essentially), others are just empty. For example, in this section, Rand rails endlessly against then notion of loving people for no reason. She’s arguing against Jim’s assertion that “love is it’s own cause.” But every single person who has ever been in love fell in love for a reason. And they know what it is! And relationships end when people stop providing the “reason” for that love to each other. Seriously, who goes around demanding to be loved, but not due to any attributes of their own? Can we explain Rand’s psychotic egotism as the product of a traumatic childhood spent around needy, talentless assholes? That’s that most charitable theory I can come up with.
Quotes: “‘This is not an old-fashioned grab for private profit. It’s a deal with a mission–a worthy, public-spirited mission–to manage the nationalized properties of the various People’s States of South America, to teach their workers our modern techniques of production, to help the underprivileged who’ve never had a chance to–‘” –James Taggart. Okay, we have to settle this once and for all: does Rand condemn altruism in this book, or is she arguing that altruism doesn’t exist, and is simply a way for the dull masses to exploit the brilliance of the elite? Does she not realize that these are separate propositions? Is she fundamentally incapable of visualizing a truly selfless act, and therefore fails to credit the existence of said? Sadly, this question will remained unanswered.
“Knowledge did not seem to bring her a clearer vision of Jim’s world, but to make the mystery greater. She could not believe that she was supposed to feel respect for the dreary senselessness of the art shows which his friends attended, of the novels they read, of the political magazines they discussed–the art shows, where she saw the kind of drawings she had seen chalked on any pavement of her childhood’s slums–the novels, that purported to prove the futility of science, industry, civilization and love, using language that her father would not have used in his drunkenest moments–the magazines, that propounded to cowardly generalities, less clear and more stale than the sermons for which she had condemned the preacher of the slum mission as a mealy-mouthed old fraud. She could not believe that these things were the culture she had so reverently looked up to and so eagerly waited to discover. She felt as if she had climbed a mountain toward a jagged shape that had looked like a castle and had found it to be the crumbling ruin of a gutted warehouse.” Concise as always, Ayn. And “dreary senselessness” is the best description for this book I’ve yet come across.
“‘I know that it was you who ran Taggart Transcontinental. It was you who built the John Galt Line. It was you who had the mind and the courage that kept all of it alive. I suppose you thought that I married Jim for his money–as what shopgirl wouldn’t have? But, you see, I married Jim because I…I thought that he was you. I thought that he was Taggart Transcontinental! Now I know that he’s…some sort of vicious moocher, though I can’t understand of what kind or why. When I spoke to you at my wedding, I thought that I was defending greatness and attacking its enemy…but it was in reverse…it was in such horrible, unbelievable reverse!…So I wanted to tell you that I know the truth…not so much for your sake, I have no right to presume that you’d care, but…but for the sake of the things I loved.” –Cherryl Taggart. And “Atlas Shrugged” skirts with the only thing that could make it even crudely interesting at this point: lesbianism.
Don’t fight it, Cherryl!
Atlas Summer: Part III: Chapter II: The Utopia of Greed
Atlas Summer: Part III: Chapter II: The Utopia of Greed
Basil Exposition: Austin, the Cold War is over!
Austin Powers: Finally, those capitalist pigs will pay for their crimes, eh? Eh comrades? Eh?
Basil Exposition: Austin… we won.
Austin Powers: Oh, smashing, groovy, yay capitalism!
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
Reflections: I want to focus my attention on Richard Halley’s speech and an attempt to divine the concept of Art within the Objectivist ideology. Furthermore, the speech can be read as Objectivist Camp, since, like the many speeches that pepper this tome, it can have unintended hilarity. Any piece of art that takes solipsism and earnestness to such an exaggerated degree offers oodles of yuks for fans of Camp and Kitsch. If the Matrix movies ushered us into the Desert of the Real, then Atlas Shrugged brings us the Keane paintings of neo-liberal economics.
A few questions before we proceed into the Hellmouth:
1. What is Art? (Similarly, what is propaganda?)
2. Is interpretation a matter of free will?
3. Is Atlas Shrugged camp?
4. What is the difference between Objectivist fiction and Socialist Realism?
5. Are my individualistic reactions to this book simply another flavor of individualism, since following the philosophy of Objectivist groupthink involves sacrificing a degree of my individuality?
If you’re not an Objectivist, it’s probably because you’re a loser, loser!
She just wants to be pretty, popular, and rich. That doesn’t make her shallow.
The famous composer Ayn Rand Richard Halley addresses Quinn Morgendorffer Sue Sylvester Ayn Rand Dagny Taggart in a speech that explains Objectivist philosophy in terms of art:
That is the payment I demand. Not many can afford it. I don’t mean your enjoyment, I don’t mean your emotion – emotions be damned! – I mean your understanding and the fact that your enjoyment was of the same nature as mine, that it came from the same source: from your intelligence, from the conscious judgment of a mind able to judge my work by the standard of the same values that went to write it – I mean, not the fact that you felt, but that you felt what I wished you to feel, not the fact that you admire my work, but that you admire it for the things I wished to be admired.
Emotions be damned! An odd opinion for a composer to espouse, considering that non-verbal music (not opera or Frank Sinatra, etc.) works because it effects the listener on some emotional level. This can be expanded to nearly ever medium of art (music, literature, film, etc.). Effective, not necessarily great, art effects people on an emotional level. One of the reasons Atlas Shrugged fails as art is because the reader is emotionally uninvolved with any of the characters.
9 out of 10 North Koreans like this poster for the same reason as the artist.
I mean, not the fact that you felt, but that you felt what I wished you to feel, not the fact that you admire my work, but that you admire it for the things I wished to be admired.
Therefore, as per Objectivist philosophy, I shouldn’t let my emotions get involved with art appreciation. Fair enough. Now I have to appreciate said art in the same way as the composer/author/etc.? What’s individualist about that? I’ll appreciate Halley or Rand the way I want without some Cultural Commissar telling me what to think. Go back to Russia, Halley!
Whether it’s a symphony or a coal mine, all work is an act of creating and comes from the same source: the inviolate capacity to see through one’s own eyes – which means: the capacity to perform a rational identification – which means: the capacity to see, to connect and to make what had not been seen, connected and made before.
A rational identification? Really? Objectivists probably don’t like the Surrealists, since that art movement openly catered to exploring the irrational and subconscious. North Korean murals with heroes and machinery is far more preferable, since it is a rational identification with the proletariat.
Halley goes on a bit comparing artists to industrialists, saying artistic vision is similar the inventiveness of an industrialist. Both require creativity and drive. Advantage: Rand.
This, Miss Taggart, this sort of spirit, courage and love for truth – as against the sloppy bum who goes around proudly assuring you that he has almost reached the perfection of a lunatic, because he’s an artist who hasn’t the faintest idea what his work is or means, he’s not restrained by such crude concepts as ‘being’ or ‘meaning,’ he’s the vehicle of higher mysteries, he doesn’t know how he created his work or why, it just came out of him spontaneously, like vomit from a drunkard, he did not think, he wouldn’t stoop to thinking, he just felt it, all he has to do is feel – he feels, the flabby, loose-mouthed, shifty-eyed, drooling, shivering, uncongealed bastard!
Personal Reaction: I really loved this passage. The novel went from being plain tedious to becoming So Bad It’s Good. It was gloriously, shark-jumpingly camp-tastic! I imagine hardcore Stalinists reading this passage to each other. “First one who laughs drinks a shot!” This passage, and Francisco’s previous monologue about drunken beatniks having more power than CEOs, makes this book unintentionally hilarious, in the same way the jovial Proletarian Heroes™ singing about their tractors in Socialist Realism films. I was disappointed that Richard Halley didn’t kick Dagny down a bottomless pit and then shout, “FOR SPARTA!”
This, Miss Taggart, this sort of spirit, courage and love for truth – as against the sloppy bum who goes around proudly assuring you that he has almost reached the perfection of a lunatic[.]
Rand accidentally describes herself, since the writing in this mess is sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. Probably had her editors blacklisted for questioning her perfection.
Charlie Parker improvises during his songs. What a moron!
because he’s an artist who hasn’t the faintest idea what his work is or means
Ergo, All Art Requires a Message. Thus, Patch Adams is a much better work of art than, say, Inland Empire. As the Dude would say, “That’s like your opinion, man.” A piece of artwork with a clear message isn’t necessarily better than a work without one. Not all art requires it operate on a didactic or educational level. Agitprop needs a message to work, art doesn’t. I’m sure there’s a Soviet poster that would correct my views.
he’s the vehicle of higher mysteries, he doesn’t know how he created his work or why
So is Halley saying he’s against improvisation? Everything from jazz to ComedySportz to writing requires some level of spontaneity. The Beat Movement espoused a more notorious philosophy, embracing “spontaneous prose” and the dictum “First thought, best thought.” The fact that Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs are held in higher regard as writers than Ayn Rand is ironic and hilarious.
it just came out of him spontaneously, like vomit from a drunkard, he did not think, he wouldn’t stoop to thinking, he just felt it, all he has to do is feel – he feels, the flabby, loose-mouthed, shifty-eyed, drooling, shivering, uncongealed bastard!
How can one even begin to take this seriously? What began as a rational appraisal of the artist ends in a rant one usually finds in the Monty Python “Argument” sketch.
Mr Barnard (shouting) What do you want?
Man Well I was told outside …
Mr Barnard Don’t give me that you snotty-faced heap of parrot droppings!
Man What!
Mr Barnard Shut your festering gob you tit! Your type makes me puke! You vacuous toffee-nosed malodorous pervert!
Man Look! I came here for an argument.
Mr Barnard (calmly) Oh! I’m sorry, this is abuse.
Because Rand can’t hide her disgust at the opposition, she equates anyone who disagrees with her aesthetic philosophy as a vomit-spewing drunkard. Sure, honey, like all those CEOs slugging back martinis back in the Fifties never chundered into the corporate restroom. Girlfriend, please! Well, in the book, the Objectivist Heroes are all muscular, whitebread, teetotaling, and austere. Wonderful, a society full of Arnold Rimmers.
22. Considered a little less strictly, Camp is either completely naïve or else wholly conscious (when one plays at being campy). An example of the latter: Wilde’s epigrams themselves.
“It’s absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.” – Lady Windemere’s Fan
23. In naïve, or pure, Camp, the essential element is seriousness, a seriousness that fails. Of course, not all seriousness that fails can be redeemed as Camp. Only that which has the proper mixture of the exaggerated, the fantastic, the passionate, and the naïve.
24. When something is just bad (rather than Camp), it’s often because it is too mediocre in its ambition. The artist hasn’t attempted to do anything really outlandish. (“It’s too much,” “It’s too fantastic,” “It’s not to be believed,” the standard phrases of Camp enthusiasm.)
Susan Sontag, “Notes on Camp” [1964]
I’ll just leave you with this:
In 1934, the Union of Soviet Writers adopted the theory of Socialist Realism. Approved by Joseph Stalin, Nickolai Bukharin, Maxim Gorky and Andrey Zhdanov, the theory demanded that art must depict some aspect of man’s struggle toward socialist progress for a better life. It stressed the need for the creative artist to serve the proletariat by being realistic, optimistic and heroic. The doctrine considered all forms of experimentalism as degenerate and pessimistic.
The doctrine of Socialist Realism was propagated by the union’s newspaper, The Literary Gazette. If writers rebelled against this policy their work was criticized in the newspaper. If writers did not conform, they were expelled from the union.
Emphasis added.
“Union of Soviet Writers,” http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSwriters.htm
(8) Nikita Khrushchev was critical of Stalin’s cultural policies implemented by Andrey Zhdanov.
I think Stalin’s cultural policies, especially the cultural policies imposed on Leningrad through Zhdanov, were cruel and senseless. You can’t regulate the development of literature, art, and culture with a stick, or by barking orders. You can’t lay down a furrow and then harness all your artists to make sure they don’t deviate from the straight and narrow. If you try to control your artists too tightly, there will be no clashing of opinions, consequently no criticism, and consequently no truth. There will be just a gloomy stereotype, boring and useless.
Emphasis added.
“Rand did have an extremely unfortunate tendency to moralize in areas where moral judgments were irrelevant and unjustified. … especially in … aesthetics and sexuality.”
Arthur Silber
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