atlas shrugged

googlee97e0e0666d74140

2005-12-25T00:53:00.000-08:00

googlee97e0e0666d74140

venue...

2005-08-31T19:29:00.000-07:00

This page shows the last few entries of my notes/commentaries on Ayn Rand's epic novel Atlas Shrugged. For the full bunch of entries, check the August 2005 Archives.

You may contact me at yosun[at]nusoy[dot]com.

Chapter 30: In the Name of the Best Within Us

2005-08-30T19:13:00.000-07:00

This final chapter, like the preceding chapters following Galt's speech, presents to the reader more events which review the salient points of Galt's speech.

Dagny, the only one amongst the heroes who is still officially in the world, goes up to the sentinnel guarding the entrance to Project F. She gives him the ultimatum of "to think (thus live) or to obey (blindly)," when she demands entrance. Because the guard utters the insidious bromide, "who am I to think?"--which implies who am I to live--and because when faced with the danger of a gun, the gun terrorizes him less than the act of choosing to stand down instead of obeying the late (mentally) Ferris' orders--that he would choose to exist without consciousness--Dagny shoots him.

Dagny, Rearden, d'Anconia and Danneskjold are the first of many others in Galt's Gulch to reach Galt. They, the force guided by mind, effortlessly manage to bypass the armed guards--brute force without mind. When Dagny reaches him, Galt has obtained the one value he wanted to win from the outer world. The other Gulchers who risked their life to save him did not do so at a sacrifice, either. Galt is too big of an asset to leave in the hands of the looters, and, in full consciousness of his superlative value, they would risk their lives to save this asset.

Eddie Willers finds himself stranded in the middle of nowhere when the diesel of the last Taggart Comet dies on him. A band of men traveling by means of horse-drawn wagons offers him and the passengers a ride, whilst telling him the news that the Taggart bridge had fallen. Eddie had previous found out that Headquarters isn't responding. He refuses to join the band of men who have resorted to the primitive, as if he were a sea captain who would rather drown in his ship, rather than be saved by savages rowing in their canoes.

In his fall to desperate mindlessness, Willers realizes the exact nature of the best within us--it is that in men which makes business and making a living possible. His desperate panic loses coherence, when he calls out--in the name of saving it, the best within us, he had to get the train going. He does not allow himself to accept that it cannot be saved in the outer world; and thus, because of this negation of mind, however slight, he is doomed to perish.

The final section of this book is supposed to convey the sense of an immense deliverence of freedom of release and tension of purpose, of space swept clean, leaving nothing but the joy of unobstructed effort. The heroes plan to repopulate and remake the world. This has to be because A is A, and the world they are to create will be the one for man qua man. (man by virtue of being man)

Chapter 29: The Generator

2005-08-29T20:41:00.000-07:00

The generator is the source of... Stadler's physical demise (generator as Project X), Dagny's epiphany (revelation of true nature of villains), and Taggart's mental realization and demise. The latter two vie the generator as Project F.

Stadler realizes the fatal dead end of his submitting to the looter's game. That once the looters have exhausted their use of him, he would no longer be safe from them and whatever power he had would instantly disappear. He plans on seizing control of Project X. His means: somehow. His motive: his terror of Thompson, the fact that it now is either Galt joins them or Galt refuses to surrender, wherein Stadler would be tortured to attempt to goad John. Stadler's liquid brain of thoughts without connections feels that his plan is a practical necessity.

Stadler finds that the Friends of the People have taken over the project a few hours before him. Stadler's terror when he encounters Meig, the vigilante head of the project, is the realization that Cuffy Meigs is his final spiritual son--the imbecile whom Stadler had sold his soul to. Meigs' terror in his moment of triumph, of gaining control over a weapon capable of mass destruction, is finding the mystic intellectual present, here, and refusing to fear him and defying his power! Meig, as per the psychological defense mechanism evident in his bullyism, lived in chronic terror his whole life, and now, it is as if the sum of his triumph has become the sum of his fears.

Megis, in his drunken panic, louts about and accidentally presses the lever for the weapon to self-destruct. Stadler, et. al., perish. Justice is blind as to who dies--whether the worthless lout of a bulley symbolized by Cuffy or Stadler, the once inviolate mind who had confronted the syllogism that A is A enough to have created the theory making the weapon possible.

Dagny listens in on the looters' plans after Galt's outbreak. Morrison panics and runs away (presumably to his well-stocked country home), stating that he's tried everything he could, etc. The rest of the villains realize that no matter what private escapes they'd provided for themselves, the full fact is that all are trapped. That if they were to run away to their country fortress, their lives could very well be taken by bandits. "They had the relieved look of cheats who could believe that the game could end no other way and were making no effort to contest or regret it." Even at checkmate, they would blank-out the solution of giving up, and they would still want their own way (who are they to know that their way is right?).

Mouch and Thompson give up their "liberal" stance and lets Ferris deal with Galt via force.

Dagny's epiphany comes about when she realizes that the nature and method of rebellion they had against existence--their undefined quest for some unnamed Nirvanna--was that they did not want to live, that they wanted to die.

As Galt lies trapped in the torture rack of the Ferris Persuader--Project F, Taggart screams out to them to increase the current, to deliver more pain to Galt, (to increase the current enough so as to kill him). When the generator breaks, Galt is the only one who can instruct the mechanic on how to fix it. The mechanic runs away, while Taggart attempts to fix it.

In the midst of his frenetic mindless action, Taggart realizes the truth about himself. That he wants Galt to die knowing that death would follow after wards, that given the choice of reality or die, he would forsake reality to die. That underneath the superficiality of "the public good," hidden from himself by his miasma of feelings and blank-outs, Taggart's core is:

Lust to destroy whatever was living for the sake of whatever was not.
To defy reality by the destruction of every living value, for the sake of proving to himself that he could exist in defiance of reality, never bound by facts.

Ferris and Mouch drag Taggart away, halting their torture of John for the time being, fearing that if they were to continue, they would reach a similarly self-stifling realization of self.

Chapter 28: The Egoist

2005-08-28T19:09:00.000-07:00

John Galt is an egoist in the purest, most undiluted sense of the word: he lives for his own sake, his own life. Therefore, the looters' attempts to chain him via references to "moral responsibility" and such are useless. Moreover, he's not open to a deal without a mutual trade: value given and received on both sides; Thompson's attempts to negotiate with him are pointless because the world of the villains has no value to offer him.

After Galt's speech, the villains panic. Dagny is the first to speak of a solution: she tells the villains to quit, to give up. Stadler tells them to kill Galt. Thompson, in his attempt to denial his true thug-like nature, views both views as too extreme. He decides to strike a deal with John Galt. While he is correct that a man like Galt is always open to a deal, he doesn't allow himself to realize that he has nothing of value to offer as his part of the deal.

More people quit, and seemingly random acts of violence become more rampant. Barns are burnt, whole families destroy themselves. Factories and vital industries fall as everyone avoids the jobs of responsibility. People reacted apathetically to the wage-raises for making effort; it is as if people don't care to live or they don't care to live on present terms. The incumbents send out radio messages of distress on every available channel, in hopes that one of them would reach Galt. In desperation, Thompson asks Dagny for help, subtly leaking out the possibility that Galt might be in danger to goad her into action. Thompson tells Dagny that he can't help it if Ferris catches him first--Ferris believes in using force and harm as a means of discipline, while Thompson, claiming that he and Mouch are more liberal, would go for none of that.

Dagny, who is too guileless to believe the villains could be playing good-cop/bad-cop on the issue of a great man's life, stalks down Galt's river-side slum house. For twelve years, Galt had lived in the real world 11 months out of 12. His home is in the worst side of town, as befits the monetary-means of the lowest of track laborers. Yet, he has a secret locked inside his home: the world's most coveted lab, filled with discoveries that could move the world. A clipping of Dagny's joyful image taken on the launch of the John Galt Line symbolizes what Galt wants to achieve; what men expect of feel about their life once or twice in a while--that is what Galt chose as the constant and normal.

Galt tells Dagny that they've little time left together on earth. That the villains would crack down on them any moment now. Dagny is horrified, but Galt assures her that this meeting was worth it; in fact, he would have been disappointed had she not come. While Dagny has never expected to resort to prevarication, she sees that the only way that Galt would escape them is if she plays along: the mind and its own force against the mindless brute. When the villains break into Galt's apartment, they force their way into the locked room of his secret lab. When the door gives, they find that it is a room of black nothingness--the demise of the room is strikingly symbolic of the creed: "do not force a mind," lest you lose (access to) it.

With full consciousness, Dagny claims she hates Galt because he wants to destroy her railroad. She knows that if the villains believe there is any affinity between them, Dagny would be used as a torture hostage. Because the villains can only extort from the victim's own values, and that Galt doesn't care to exist without values, Galt would kill himself if Dagny is used to goad his obedience--it would only be a hopeless prolonged torture.

Three stories of the Wayne-Falkland Hotel is converted into an armed prison for this very special POW. Who is John Galt?

Thompson attempts to negotiate with Galt. He offers Galt the ludicrous position of Economic Dictator. To Thompson, this position is one of the most coveted offices a villain would desire. Reason is the enemy Thompson dreads, as he clearly did not let his wits process Galt's speech: "every dictator is a mystic... a mystic craves obedience from men, not their agreement... he feels that men possess a power more potent than reason--and only their causeless belief and forced obedience can give him a sense of security." Indeed, Thompson not only disbelieves in reason and staid reality--that Galt had already denounced all dictators--he also fails to understand the meaning of words, telling John that "if you want a free economy--order people to be free!"

John replies aptly, "If you're able to pretend you haven't heard a word I said on the radio, what makes you think I haven't said it?" (Blank-out.)

Thompson's negotiation with Galt is unproductive aside from his realization that he would have no chance to speak to Galt except at gunpoint, that because he has Galt trapped, Galt's life is at his mercy. But, Galt states that because Thompson does not have any values of his, Galt's life is not his to sell. Thompson is unsettled by this conversation, and he would rather blank-out the growing revelation that he is nothing but a thug, a gun-man who threatens with the symbolic logic statement: your life or your mind.

Some other guys attempt to talk to Galt. While seemingly post-climatic reveberations of Galt's speech, each villain's to suade him does further reveal his character.

Taggart vs Galt: Taggart attempts to convince Galt that he's not right, that no one can be sure of his own knowledge, that it's a selfish luxury to hold out when people need you. Galt, the egoist, flicks off each one of Taggart's impotent lines: he knows that he is wanted because he is sure of his knowledge and that it is right, on an absolute scale, and that it is his ideas that people need. Yet, the core of Taggart's arguments can be summed by this line, "People are suffering and perishing--and you who could save them join us even if you think we're wrong... sacrifce your mind to save them." If Taggart wants Galt to sacrifice his only means to save them, then that would be death to all. The insidious nature behind Taggart's facade of the public good is revealed in the next chapter.

Morrison vs Galt: Morrison attempts to wring pathos from Galt by bringing him the petition of a bunch of schoolteachers begging Galt to save them. Essentially, Morrison feigns begging Galt's pity for all those who suffer. Galt asks Morrison whether all those who suffer had pity for Rearden. "Those who suffer" has, traditionally, been used as the chain to wield the shackles binding the heroes; once the hero falls for the trap of pitying, he will realize that the ones to be pitied are actually the ones destroying him. Morrison, then, attempts to use the age-old weapon of wringing guilt and pity from Galt. He would quit, run screaming out of the room, in the next chapter, when he realizes that such traditional weapons are now impotent.

Ferris vs Galt: (In the current author's opinion, Ferris sounds nigh too much like your typical college "ethics coordinator." The current author is haunted by such memories as the mandatory "ethics seminar" she had to attend as part of her summer REU in physics--wherein the "ethics coordinator" of the large public university that hosted the event regurgitated the essence of Ferris' argument.) Ferris attempts to force Galt to believe that it is his "moral responsibility" to the people. Using the excuse of the food shortages, Ferris threatens to kill every third child under ten and everyone over sixth years of age. (Bye bye octogenarians, et al.) "To fail to save a life is as immoral as to murder." Galt does not respond at all to Ferris. Who is the government--and Ferris, for that matter--to decide who gets to live? That a family would work hard and have their children killed, while another family would slouch around in lassitudes and be dealt the same blow--that punishment be blind, the good suffer with the bad. From the current state of the world, it is evident that the few good who remain would stop wasting their energies, and Ferris' plan could only end in disaster. Therefore, his plan speaks volumes about his own character--that because killing would not make the final disaster inevitable, he would kill for the sake of killing.

Stadler vs Galt: Once, he was a man who truly believed in the virtuous saying, "to the fearless truth, the involate mind." Twenty two years ago, he had told Galt that "The only sacred value in the world is the inviolate human mind." It is a depressing degrading that he would violate his so-called inviolate human mind, that he would stifle his thinking a bit with each step until he suffocates and dies. He attempts to defend himself against John, when by virtue of his mind--his once inviolate mind, he shouldn't need to...

The mind is useless against force. (I can't help it!)
All I wanted to do was to force the mindless materialists (The gun was aimed at them, not us!)
I had no choice except to play their game with their rules and beat them at it.
Human knowledge set free of material bonds was the great ideal I wanted (Unlimited end unrestricted by means.)
There is no other way to live on earth (Stadler then thinks of the speech: It was only logic... one can't live by logic, rationality twenty-four hours a day with no rest, no escape... ... ...)
YOU ARE THE MAN WHO HAS TO BE DESTROYED!

One sees that as the points above get darker and darker, Stadler's mind declines and descends deeper and deeper into the realm of the mindless. The conclusion Stadler reaches is that Galt, the inviolate mind, has to be destroyed. To blank-out and melt is to be the anti-mind, therefore the anti-mind.

Morrison attempts his final pull at Galt by forcing him to attend a celebration in honor of him--one to prove the merger of his ways and ours, that anything can be reconciled and united. The purpose of the celebration is valueless and immaterial, but that is no surprise because the villains' world has no objective values remaining. The blind irrationality of the event would fail to acknowledge that neither their God or their Guns would make the celebration mean what they were struggling to pretend it meant.

The luxuries offered in the event epitomized the best that the looters' view of existence could offer. Essentially, it is the sum of blank-out mindlessness--of the sacred value of the inviolate mind rescinded, perhaps never even found in the first place--the spread of mindless adulation, the unreality of enormous pretense:

Approval w/o standards
Tribute w/o content
Honor w/o causes
Admiration w/o reasons
Love w/o a code of values.

They would try to tempt Galt with their view of "life's highest fulfillment," which are worthless according to Galt or any of the heroes because unpaid virtues are... valueless. The "prizes" of their game are utterly not worth winning.

Dagny wonders whether they even see Galt, whether they wanted him to be real. If Galt is what a man can be... would they be stopped by the looters, who have not chosen to achieve it, and regard the looters and mouchers as humans and Galt as the impossible?

The John Galt Plan is announced to be the abomination of ensuring the few faithful remaining that the impossible would be possible--that all conflicts would be reconciliated and everyone would be pleased. By placating the irrational, one rescinds the rational. When they finally let John have the mic, his valliant words go like:

"Get the hell out of my way!"

Galt's Speech

2005-08-27T16:43:00.000-07:00

Detailed summary and commentary at http://galt.yosunism.com

Chapter 27: This Is John Galt Speaking

2005-08-27T16:37:00.000-07:00

The bulk of the content of the chapter is in Jon Galt's 4+ hour radio speech, to be expounded upon in detail in the next post. The chapter begins with the media's muckracking of Rearden's desertion--going from outrage to denial. When Dagny finds out, she triumphs that Rearden is free, finally out of their reach; but, simultaneously, she becomes more determined to withstand her quest, that there's still a chane to win, "but let me be the only victim." Taggart then drags Dagny to Mr. Thompson's speech on the world crisis, and Galt uses the publicity Thompson created for the event and talks in his stead.

Chapter 26: The Concerto of Deliverance

2005-08-26T23:04:00.000-07:00

Like Halley's Concertos, this chapter, The Concerto of Deliverance, involves struggle before reaching the light. Rearden makes the intellectual leap necessary to accept the state of the world, the true effects of his own actions: that the more he works, the more he kills--he is the guiltiest man because he supports the looters by working, and as long as the looters rule, the fate of men is in malicious hands. Dagny's realization of the secret of the looters, when they invite her to their meeting to decide the fate of the world--that the looters would set stricter directives to further stifle the men of ability, to subdue them, make them more pliant--along with Cherryl's aptly-put horror line that "people like you will always work, struggle to rise; we're safe, you have no choice" foreshadows Rearden's self-recognition of his superlative value and the self-powered, self-removable fetters the looter had over him.

The chapter begins with Rearden receiving an odd attachment order, a vague threat that he hasn't been straight with his personal income taxes. He doesn't react to it, and the day later, a Washington bureaucrat calls him, making the excuse that it was all a mistake, going through the same apologizing spiel twice to see his reaction. Even though the bureaucrat directly encourages him to file a claim against the file, Rearden still doesn't react, saying and doing nothing. Shortly later, Tinky Holloway calls him to attend a dinner conference, pleading for a hearing. Rearden agrees to go. The morning of the meeting, Rearden's mother calls him with a desperate insistence that he comes by, that whatever it is she needs to tell him can't be said over the phone. Rearden also agrees to her, setting her meeting before the dinner conferenec.

The above events that start the chapter are all meant to bind Rearden into staying; the looters have caught on with the latest rage and have finally figured out who would go next.

Rearden's family attempts to wring pity, guilt, and forgiveness from him. However, their method, although yellow enough to incite pity, betrays their true intent. One one level, they are desperate to keep him because if Rearden leaves, they would be left with nothing--the looting government wouldn't help the family of deserters and Rearden Steel would be nationalized. They apologize profusely, attempting to blame their mistakes on their ignorance and inability to think; they urge that Rearden feels. They're his family. Yet, their idea of forgiveness is twisted: they regret that they've hurt Rearden and to atone, they would ask for total immolation from Rearden--begging him to stay, when the hopelessness of his industrial position and the futility of his struggle should have provoked a truly loving family to tell him to leave. Indeed, his family wishes "to make him let them devour the last of him in the name of mercy, forgiveness and brother-cannibal love. (891)"

When Philip accidentally blurts out that they had to see him before the dinner conference, he reveals that the purpose of the attachment order is to bind Rearden from escaping, but limiting the avail of funds at Rearden's disposal. "You can't run away... without money." The looters have machinated the practical back-up of keeping his money away from him in case the trio who occupied the bodies of his family members failed as hostages to get Rearden to stay.

Lillian attempts to deal her last blow at Rearden by revealing her infidelity to him--as his wife, as "Rearden Wife." It is as if unable to have his value, she could surpass it by destroying it, as if she would thus obtain a measure of his greatness. Lillian had chosen Rearden for his best virtues and placed him as the center of her life, as one's love should be, but if love to Rearden is the celebration of one's existence and of existence, then self-haters and life-haters would see love as the pursuit of destruction--Lillian's goal in life had been to destroy Rearden. She had tried myriad times to lower his self-esteem, attempting to get him drunk, to interest in an extramarital affair--her attempt to steal Rearden's self-esteem is based on her knowledge that if a man surrenders his value, he would be at the mercy of anyone's will. As if by destroying Rearden, his moral purity and confident rectitude, his resultant depravity would give her the right to hers. But, Rearden is not affected by Lillian's final confession of her breaking of the purity of Rearden Wife; Rearden had long ago discredited her with the title and, moreover, he does not hold the belief that one's moral stature is at the mercy of action of another.

Rearden walks away from his family's last attempt to leech him for alms unharmed, only the wiser. When he arrives at the Wayne-Falkland Hotel, he finds that the men are meeting in the room Francisco used to occupy. As he goes through more revelations, he is haunted glimpses of Francisco's wraith. The men attempt to sell him the Steel Unification Plan, and Rearden attempts to explain to them how it wouldn't work, how it's perfectly absurd, how if they want the alleviate this mess of national emergencies, they ought to just sit back and let him take hold. But, the looters are adament in stating that that wouldn't work. They give their stream of excuses--"it's only a matter of gaining time, all we need is a chance." What are they counting on? Rearden realizes that they are counting on him. That Rearden himself had allowed them to put over his head the Equalization of Opportunity Bill, Directive 10-289, "that he had accepted the law that those who could not equal his ability had the right to dispose of it, that those who had not earned were to profit, but he who had was to lose, that those who could not think were to command, but he who could was to obey them." He had given them cause to believe that reality was a thing to be cheated, he had made their irrational universe work: he had provided for it. He was always to do without asking why, and they were always to receive and demand without asking how. Their ultimate weapon that has prevented their world from collapsing as it should have was that no matter what "he'll do something!" Rearden leaves them, realizing the full significance of the sanction of the victim.

When he returns to his mill, he finds that it is under seige by a mob attack. His Wet Nurse had attempted to save it, by voiding Washington's demand for him to let the mob into the mill. (Apparently, the looters had another backup in their machinations in case Rearden doesn't agree. They want the Steel Unifiaction Plan, and they had planned the mob attack so that the media would muckrack it to appear as if Rearden's workers are underpaid and thus that a Steel Unification Plan was necessary.) Tragically, he is fatally wounded. The Wet Nurse represents an honest man's attempt to find the right path in the midst of the evil world of the looters; if he good man gets in the looters' way, they die. Moreover, the looters would plague their children with the belief of the non-absolute to keep them in line. The vicious cycle of their world...

When Francisco d'Anconia under the nom de guerre of Frank Adams comes to reap his greatest conquest, Rearden is ready. He reacts with indifference to the destruction of his mill because he knows that if he does anything to save it, he would only be helping the looters continue to avoid reality: he is ready to leave the world behind.

Chapter 25: Their Brother's Keeper

2005-08-25T17:47:00.000-07:00

The term "brother's keeper" has biblical origins. According to The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, 3rd Ed... The line "Am I my brother's keeper?" was said by Cain in answer to God's questioning the whereabouts of the brother whom he killed. This has come to symbolize people's unwillingness to accept responsibility for the welfare of their fellows--their "brothers"--in an extended use of the term.

The four section of this chapter all involve the welfare of others, and as if following the precedene of the original murderous context in which "brother's keeper" was first used, each is tinged with an insidious air. The usual sequence of an overal happy/good- sad/bad- happy/good- sad/bad section series is used.

The first section begins with Taggart's nervous anticipation of the announcement of the nationalization of d'Anconia Copper, whilst the pitiful state the nation has succumbed to is expounded upon: how "pull peddlers" in every possible concern--transportation, steel, wage-raise, suspended sentence--have replaced competent men, dynamic like their predecessors, but also unseemly, like that which breeds, feeds, and moves upon the stillness of corpses--parasites. The news arrives that on the moment of the official nationalization of d'Anconia Copper, the company--each of its ports--had simultaneously committed suicide, the workers having long been evaluated and paid. Francisco would later leave a message asserting the exact conscious knowledge of what he had done, replacing the 1984-like calander on the towers of New York with the line "Brother, you asked for it!"

"In this enlightened age, we have come, at last, to realize that each one of us is his brother's keeper." Eugene Lawson would say as the "higher ideal" of seizing Nebraska's future via taking their graneries, their vital food sent to support Illinois. "Men had been pushed into a pit where, shouting that man is his brother's keeper, each was devouring his neighbor and was being devoured by his neighbor's brother, each was proclaiming the righteousness of the unearned and wondering who was stripping the skin off his back, each was devouring himself, while screaming in terror that some unknowable evil was destroying the earth."

In truth, they have reached the ideal of the centuries: where need as the highest ruler wrecks the first claim upon them, where need is the standard of value, the coin of realm, more sacred than right and life. Is the world that results irrational? The chaos and deaths and catastrophes are merely the consequences of a world where need comes before right and life.

The connection with the biblical reference of "brother's keeper" becomes obvious when Ramirez, who comes to power over the People's State of Chile, declares his moral slogan as "man is his brother's keeper"--implying that men are responsible for others first before, if ever, himself.

The Minnesota disaster is a tragedy that shed lights on the true intention behind the excuse of man being his brother's keeper, of serving the public welfare. Even though food is a bare necessity for the public welfare (with the prospect of starvation over the coming winter impending), the rail-cars necessary for the Minnesota harvest--the only source of grain--is sent to Ma Chalmer's soybean project. Chalmers obviously has more pull-power, and thus the reader sees that it is pull-power that determines who must be "kept" and what the public welfare needs. Rand's description of this single incident is all-encompassing in that it epitomizes the essence of the struggle of the myriad men who have committed suicide or quit the world. It shows the blatant injustice served to the good and competent by the impotent: this is Minnesota's best harvest, and yet it is left to rot next to frozen rail-lines, where the cars needed for its transportation have been sent to California for a premature harvest of inedible soybeans. Moreover, the farmers' reaction--the haggard farmer who drags a sack-full of grain on his back only to fall down dead into a ditch, the product of his harvest wasted, as if their work is but an aimless struggle with an end that a pull-peddler could easily push out of their reach. It is only when enough violence arises, much of the grain already rotten and the rest doomed, that the masses of farmers "bulley" Washington into sending the needed cars--but it is too late. The farmers who burn their own farms and kill themselves do so in acts of mercy-killing, like the industrialists who commited family-homicide. They know that if the culmulation of their work--the harvest as a magnum opus--comes to such a pitiful end, then there is something deadly evil about the world and they would rather die and destroy the goods they own than serve it. It is also the amelioration of the good man: if the world is about pointless suffering and aimless actions, then death be our final viaticum.

Dagny realizes the evil of the villains, and Cherry's haunting realization and subsequent suicide aptly prepares the reader for the beginning of Dagny's freeing from the thinning strings that still binds her to them.

At the meeting in the Wayne-Faulkland Hotel, where the head honcho pull-pedlers (Lawson, Taggart, Mouch, Ferris, Weatherby, Meigs) meet to decide the fate of the world, they mention her name in her presence not to delude her into believing they are consulting her but to attempt to delude themselves into believing she had agreed to the preposterous actions they merely "hinted" to each other at. They want her approval without knowing whether she approved or not. She had attended because this was the first they had included her in their meetings to decide the fate of the world, and she had thought this would be her chance to get them to turn it over to her.

But, instead, she comes to grips with their insidious nature. She had thought they had seized factories in acknowledgment of their values. But, as long as men exist, they will always be able to seize. The harder men work, and the less they gain, the more submissive the fiber of their spirit. They had seized factories in order to make the producers more pliable. She sees through the superficial facade of the humanitarian hiding Lawson's pleasure in the prospect of human starvation. She sees that Ferris, the scientists, dreams of the day when men return to the hand-plow. But, she reacts with incredulity--she doesn't see how a man could be reduced to such a base state--and indifference--because she no longer regards them as men.

In the fourth section, Dagny becomes Galt's keeper by consumating their relationship. Galt, in his desires to claim her before they are both safely and determinedly out of reach of the villains, has put his life in Dagny's hands; he knows that Dagny would not resist tracking him down, and in the process of such, Dagny would lead them straight to him. They make passionate love in the depths of the Taggart Tunnel--this is symbolic because the tunnels are the source of a fount of blood, ichor, and Dagny and John are the living power.

Dagny brings the enjoyment of life back to the rightful owners, her look of energy and reward intertwined, together, and Galt is the first man who stated in what manner these two are inseparable.

Dagny finds that Galt had been working as a mere track laborer down here for twelve years. This is symbolic of the relationship between a thinking man and Atlantis. Atlantis is hidden by nothing but an optical illusion, just as Galt's identity is hidden by nothing but the error of Dagny's sight. The thinking man does not see past the fetters of the looter's hold over them, and thus they cannot reach Atlantis.

References
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, 3th ed., edited by E. D. Hirsch, Jr., et al. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002. www.bartleby.com/59/. [Date of Printout].

Chapter 24: Anti-Life

2005-08-24T23:20:00.000-07:00

This chapter is grotesque, disgusting, and ends with bathos that implies that in what the world has deprecated into, good men (and women) can either die willingly and of her own hand or die via being leeched, working for the ever-hungry moochers. Its structure follows the familiar bad, good, bad, except the fourth is good depending on whether one sees its significance or not.

The chapter begins with Taggart finding himself bereft of the care to live or die. He recalls being disgusted at a party held by Senor Gonzales and his wife. Gonzales has become the new "rich and powerful," which in contrast to the "old wealth" that Taggart and Weatherby (and Lillian) are a part of, is a class populated by muscle-men, like those of Cuffy Meig's like. He had left because he felt like he should celebrate--nay, he wanted to celebrate, but he could not admit the purpose to which he wanted to celebrate. He feels a danger in finding the truth of self, and thus he suspends judgment on the premise that danger would remain unreal by the sovereign power of the wish to not see it. The party marked the inevitable nationalization of d'Anconia Copper to come in less than a month on September 2, and because it was Taggart who had machinated it, he felt he ought to celebrate.

He returns home to Cherryl, but he becomes irritated when she questions him on the great business deal he pulled off today. That her look of admiration--which he needed--would wan when he goes past the superficial bromides and describes the nature of the event. He is irked that she is a trader and expects him to be one, too. That she would not take unearned love, would attempt to live up to Mrs. James Taggart in return for the kindness he had shown her, and that she had envisioned him to be like Hank Rearden, and she had loved him because she had faultfully mistaken him to be like him. Taggart wants from Cherryl the admission of fgreatness without any specific consent to his greatness, wanting her to see in him the spirit of a producer--so that he might loot that spirit, have unearned love, be Rearden without the necessity of being anything, of being. He had thought that by giving Cherryl wealth that she could never have earned, he would be able to tie her to him, and he is disgusted by the fact that she would want to try to live up to it. If analogized to the Starnes heirs, Taggart is akin to both Eric and Gerald.

Thinking she merely needs a walk outside away from the house, Cherryl leaves Taggart. She ventures to Dagny's office, and she apologizes to Dagny for what she had said to her on her wedding night--she had mistaken Dagny for the real Taggart and vice versa. Cherryl is direct and open, stating that apologizing will not nullify her actions and she is presumptuous in her action to apologize, but she can only ask for a favor, that Dagny hears her apology. Dagny reveals to her the secret of the accusation that one is "unfeeling"--it means that the person is just, that she possesses no causeless emotions and will not grant the accuser the feeling he doesn't deserve: will not go against reason, moral values and reality. Justice is the opposite of charity. Those who grant sympathy to evil don't grant sympathy to guilt, none to innocence. Dagny reveals to Cherryl that she manages "to stay unmangled" by placing nothing above the verdict of her own mind--the highest, noblest and only good on earth. Cherryl admits that she once believed in that, but it seems the world would hurt her for it and that she must hide that innate innocence in her. Dagny is worried about Cherryl, but Cherryl assures Dagny that she is okay, not knowing the extent of her injuries.

In the third section, Lillian comes crawling to Taggart for help. She has delivered Rearden and now she would like her favors remembered; but, the problem is, the nature of this evil trading is that one must have further favors to grant, and she is bankrupt of favors. Taggart, though, claims that he would like to help her, but he isn't powerful enough, that Rearden is too powerful an adversary (implying that, from the freedom of guilt Rearden now flaunts, any further antagonization against him would very well tip him over beyond the looters' domain of leech).

Despite Lillian's dispicable appearance and behavior, Taggart finds himself enjoying her presence. In their world, damnation has become a value, and when he tells Lillian of the scheme he machinated to nationalize d'Anconia Copper--and Lillian points that d'Anconia was his friend, but yet he managed to beat him, use him, overpower him, her tone is that of admiration of a great deed. What the villains hold as accomplishments is destruction. Lillian drawls on that she can't lay tracks, erect bridges, or build mills, but she can destroy them; she can't produce metal, but she can take it away from him; she can't bring men to knees in admiration, but she can bring men to knees... Taggart tells her to shut up because this is cuts too close to the truth about himself, and he would rather live the lie of his self-abdication. However, he has sex with her because she is still Mrs. Rearden. It is an act that to them is the triumph of impotence, that the worthless husks that they are would be able to best Rearden, that Taggart would disgrace Mrs. Rearden, that Taggart had the power to do so, to defile Rearden's name embodied in a wife who would openly let Taggart rape her... They perform this action without feeling, with only the self-deception that it would hurt Rearden, in some way, because the act derides him, even if only in their perspectives.

When Cherryl returns, it seems Taggart has found his surrogate to harm in lieu of Rearden. He tells Cherryl that the woman he was with in her absence was Mrs. Henry Rearden--as if breaking Cherryl would break Rearden, because Taggart realizes that Cherryl, like Rearden, is one of those who would always work and struggle to rise. When Cherryl questions him, he admits that he wanted her to owe him gratefulness that could not be earned for loving her flaws, so that she would love him even though he is worthless, that they would be beggeres chained to each other. Cherryl realizes that Taggart could find this kind of lover in any woman, and she is perceptive enough to get from Taggart the truth that he married her because she wouldn't be that sort of woman. But then, she realizes that it is because she is not depraved, that he wants to destroy her, to chain her to him. Her revelation: that Taggart is a killer for the sake of killing.

Cherryl escapes the house, yet again the same night. This time, however, she feels it useless to visit Dagny. She feels the burden of the hopeless tragedy the good are all involved in, that by their nature, they would work, and thus the looters would be safe and they have no choice. When she kills herself, it is due to the conscious decision to not help the looters anymore. It is due to the conclusion that, in this world, we all die. Like the secret of the Railroad Unification Board, the company that runs no trains survives--and those who are good and who produce will be drained, to die. She destroys herself because she does not wished to be leeched anymore. In this, she represents the myriad suicides of the various industrialists checkmated by the Directives.

The significance of Cherryl's conscious suicide has to do with a) the thought process she reveals to the reader in making up her conclusion that it was either die or be used, drained to death slowly and b) Dagny's growing certainty that by helping the looter government, she would be helping the anti-life. The latter would be revealed later on in the novel.

Chapter 23: Anti-Greed

2005-08-23T11:16:00.000-07:00

Through portraying the contrast in self-denial between Dr. Stadler and Rearden placed in juxtaposition with Dagny's haggard and blatent self-admission and open truth, the ultimate meaning of this chapter is to show that the anti-greed is the anti-life.

Both Stadler and Rearden are flawed in that they believe (or believed) in a breech between mind and body. Stadler, however, lets this breech shackle his mind. Stadler's form of the breech is via the thought that the theoretical and pure is abjectly different and does not need to worry about the practical and politics--and one's source of funds. That he would believe that by praising the State Science Institute, he would set science free from the rule of the dollar, shows his abject naivity--from whence would the funds come from without the dollar? From himself, that he would be the one drained:

Stadler finds himself disturbed from his studies when two goons who are now considered physicists "escort" him to the field where Project X (The Thompson Harmonizer) is to be showcased. He does not accept the fact that he has now become a prisoner--that by being dependent on the "public good" for a source of funds, he has become dependent on the looting government that decrees who deserves the "public good."

The Thompson Harmonizer is a machine capable of massive destruction and works in the same way that the looters do; by striking the right key, one activates the machine, the act of which is similar to how one manipulates aptly the "right chords" to stifle and trap a man of ability.

Ferris thus strikes the right chord to deliver the final blow in activating Stadler's self-destruction sequence. Ferris claims that because the people would believe that an instrument of death and destruction is a tool of prosperity and peace, they would believe it if the government were to change their stance on the view of the State Science Institute and Dr. Stadler--that if the government were to denounce Stadler as an evil enemy of the state, people would believe this, that Stadler's greatness is dependent on what the state tells the people, that the meaning of his name is now no more significant than the common person's fault in believing it is still associated with greatness.

Because Stadler is a believer of the negating view of man's intelligence, having been disillusioned by too much ineptitude, he has succumbed to the helplessness summarized by the bromide, "what can you do when you deal with men?" This statement of helplessness embodies the paradigm the looters wish to throw as a funeral shroud against everyone's ability to see. That principles have no influence on public affairs (true if public affairs are actually machinated by a looting incumbent). That reason has no power over humans (true if everyone has been brainwashed to believe that the mind doesn't exist, that only the government does--and it has to because it determines who gets what, the bare necessities). That logic is impotent (true if reason is dead). That morality is superfluous, that questions of truth don't enter social issues.

In his most dire moment, Stadler does not allow himself to accept the truth. That through the betrayal of the fearless mind and the inviolate truth, he has delivered himself to the animal fear of physical destruction--in the midst of a civilized world! But, he does not allow himself the last glory which he can attempt to wring--the knowledge that the public would triumph in hearing the truth from him, that he had nothing to do with the weapon other than to invent to basic scientific theory. Perhaps he knows that because he has stooped to the stage where Ferris can checkmate him via manipulation of his mind, he has become worthless, that the name Dr. Robert Stadler has truly been deprecated.

He betrays the young newsboy, who rereprsents the man of intelligence and ability and devotion to the fearless truth, who cries out to him to tell the truth, that the people would believe him, and he makes the finalizing speech in acceptance of the Harmonizer--that he is proud that his years of hard work has placed in the hands of Thompson, a mere shyster, the tool of liberation (massive destruction), the device capable of forcing men to be civilized (by trapping them in a state where their life depends on the mercy of the shyster). Dr. Stadler is living out the hell that is the consequence of discounting ideals, of belittling the concept of material profit. There would be no profit left to be derived from whatever the Harmonizer destroys; the anti-greed is death.

Taggart attempts to pull the same trick as Ferris on Dagny. Taggart asserts the good of the Railroad Unification Board, as if naming what Dagny's opinion in advance, it would be set in stone. Then he asks that Dagny attend Scudder's radio show, to state that she is with the government, whilst implying that her presence has been advertised for so many times it would be a total embarassment to him if she weren't to attend. Dagny realizes that they needed her sanction to deceive themselves--as if their self-deception sought the extorted approval of the unwilling victim as the moral sanction they needed... they who deceive themselves, not just the world.

Dagny has not been reduced to the state of helplessness of Stadler's because she does not depend on the government for a source of funds, is not reduced to the possibility of death from hunger if the government were to withdraw its favor.

When Lillian threatens to reveal to the world Dagny's affair with Rearden as scandel, Dagny is finally forced to attend the show. Lillian triumphs in her mobilizing Dagny to attend, gloating that she is completely devoid of greed in her service to the government, but meanwhile acknowledging her power over Dagny, nay, even desperate to get Dagny to realize that Lillian is in power.

In the radio show, Dagny asserts that she stands by Rearden but then begins to divulge the very secret that should have checkmated her into submission to the government. She openly admits to her affair and she praises it, stating that it was good. After she has stated everything, she names the final piece--that it was used as blackmail against Rearden and now she.

Rearden, in the third section of this chapter, admits to Dagny that he loves her and always will and had--that the fact that he could not allow himself to say it had to be paid for by the gift certificate. When they extorted from him the rights to his metal, it made him realize how much he cares for Dagny, and this was his responsible payment of it, that he would rather her not suffer the stigma of public disgrace. But, his action had been shortsighted. He had not the wisdom to know that a lie--any lie--is self-abidication, that one surrenders one's reality to the person one lies to, that by allowing the affair to be kept secret, Rearden had made it public property (public in the perjorative way, i.e., the non-personified stooge the government claims to serve the good to whenever they grant a personal favor).

Rearden had initially kep the affair secret, had not directly divorced Lillian and married Dagny because of the "killer tenet" he had believed in--the breech of mind and body. He took pride in his ability to think and act and work for the satisfication of his own desires, the highest moral value, the one that makes life possible, but he surrendered his reason by denouncing ideas and thus crippled himself by cutting himself in two:

He who knew that wealth only means to end, took pride in ability to achieve satisfaction of desires let them prescribe his end and code of values.

AGAINST .... (but) LET THEM

looter's attempt to set price/value of steel .... moral value of his life
unearned wealth ... duty to wife whose love was unearned, unearned respect to mother who hates him, brother who plots for his death
undeserved financial injury ... undeserved pain
proudictive abilty is guilt ... his capacity for happiness is guilt

His acknowledging of his errors and how he has reacted to them, having not let them cripple him but teach him worthwhile lessons, has made him stronger--strong enough that he can accept Dagny's finding of a lover who is not he.

But, it is not sacrifice that guides his acceptance of Dagny's new lover. Both Rearden and Dagny know that they will always love each other by virtue of their capacity of happiness, ability to produce. Rearden accepts it because he knows that Dagny's happiness would be hers, as well as his--he loves her.

Chapter 22: The Utopia of Greed

2005-08-22T19:00:00.000-07:00

The haven that Galt's Gulch is... is essentially an utopia of greed. Every single action done by its inhabitants and creators is greedy--for one's own good without letting someone else's good come before one's own. Yet, with every man for his own good in absolute greed does not lead to the demise that the conventional view would decree; in this chapter, Rand expounds on values and achievements--more importantly, that all that is good comes from greed.

Worth for worth, every single man in this value contributes to its existence; those who create it utilize tremendous strength and invest the time of their own lives into the process--but they do not succumb to the desecration of sacrifice. Ragnar explains his part in contributing to the Valley, that he is withdrawing the products of man's spirit, the wealth of the capable, the body of the world, whereas John is withdrawing man's spirit, the men of reason, the soul of the world. But, he chooses to contribute by being a pirate, undergoing dangerous missions to raid the ships sent to People's States. As he pointed out to Rearden earlier, this is not a sacrifice; instead, it's a downpayment for his future, that, through his actions, after the end of the looter's regime, the men of the mind would be able to build and recreate the world faster. It is for his own good.

In finding Dagny, again, it is as if Francisco has refound the meaning of his twelve year struggle and crusade. He had set out to abandon the outside world in order to destroy it, to make possible the future that they will recreate, where the rulers of society would not be the looters, but the men of the mind. Yet, the idea is embodied in the vision of creating the world of Dagny's dreams, the one she expects to wake up to everyday, but fails to find in the desolate leech the outside world has become. It's the world the heroes expect to find but did not find in the real world that has been created, here--and the fact that it exists now, even on a small scale, makes the struggle worth it.

When Dagny realizes that she wants John, she does not yet allow herself to fulfill that wish; she does not believe she has earned him. Moreover, the trouble of the love triangle (quadangle) haunts her--would John succumb to the sacrifice of his mutual desire for her in order to save Francisco the pain? To do such would mean that the three (four, if we count Rearden) live forever in a vicious cycle of lies and self-denial; the three of them living with the frustration of not being able to make unreality real, sacrifice based on another's self-deceit, the hopeless longing, the vain conclusion that love is futile and happiness not to be found on earth. John states that he would rather not have Dagny stay with Francisco for the last week of her stay, and Dagny sees this as John's statement that he would not undergo the sacrifice of one's dearest love common to the outer world. But, John tells Dagny that the destruction of a value which is will not give value to that which isn't; that lying to oneself, the destruction of truth via denial, would be an ultimate form of destruction. That she shouldn't have doubted the virtue of either he or Francisco to have believed in the paranoia of a love polygon.

Halley performs for Dagny, and he tells her that all work is an act of creating--all work comes from the same source, an inviolate capacity to see, "to connect and make what had not been seen connected and made before." He performs for her, but Halley receives a mutual payment for the joy she receives from his music: that he's found a viewer, a rational mind to appreciate and understand his work.

Dagny joins Akston's trio of students and Kay in his backyard, and he tells her that his version of a prayer, his hope which he held through the years of uncertainty, is "a full, confident, affirming self-dedication to my love of the right, to the certainty that the right would win and that this boy would have the kind of future he deserved." They fight for the love of their lives; they struggle to create their love; their certainty of the good, that this day would come, that it would be worth it. That of all men, Stadler is the guiltiest. He is the mind who knew better, the man who sacrificed his name of honor to fuel the looter's power--the man who denounced ideals, and by doing such, became the man who committed suicide consciously. In contrast to Stadler's forced denial of the real practical, Akston further explains the inevitability of what they did, that it was what must be done:

To make the fallacy of viewing evil as a necessity, one must check one's premises. What is good and what are the conditions it requires? "Those who cry loudest about their disillusionment, about the failure of virtue, the futility of reason, the impotence of logic--are those who have achieved the full, exact, logical result of the ideas they preached. So mercilessly logical that they dare not identify it."

"In a world that proclaims non-existence of the mind, the moral righteousness of rule by brute force, the penalizing of the competent in favor of the incompetent, the sacrifice of the best to the worst--the best have to turn against society and have to become its deadliest enemies."

The Valley, the process that went into devising it, creating it, populating it by means of draining the outer world of abled men, is thus a measure of what Galt, Danneskjold and d'Anconia have preserved and of what they are--they who have made no concesssions to others, who have brought into reality the image of his thought.

Akin to the fountain of youth, this Valley embodies the world of reason each hero had seen in the days of his youth; "to hold an unchanging youth is to reach, at the end, the vision with which one started," and the fact that they've reached it by creating it is a form of youth eternal. "It is not this valley, but the view of life held by men in the outer world that is the prehistoric image." The valley is the sheerly real proof of gloried existence in reality--the love of the human spirit, the experience of life, proudly, guiltlessly, joyously, alive--each hero had set out to reach in his youth.

To stay in the Valley, to remain worthy of it, one cannot defy reality. Dagny must face every single bodkin tearing at the flesh and blood of Taggart Transcontinental, while in the Valley. "Conscious choice based ona full conscious knowledge of every fact involved in his decision." Brutally truthful, John states to her the simple truth that, "Nobody stays here by faking reality in any matter whatever."

But, Dagny cannot abandon the world and Taggart Transcontinental, what is hers--and the men of the mind's--by right... and all the men who desire to live--outside Galt's Gulch. "So long as men desire to live, I cannot lose my battle."

And so, to win the greatest prize he could ever achieve, John has to prove to her that men outside do not desire to live.

Chapter 21: Atlantis

2005-08-21T23:15:00.000-07:00

This chapter describes Atlantis, a.k.a. Mulligan's Valley or Galt's Gulch--its scenery and layout and which tycoon runs which farm. It explains for the existence of Atlantis, as well as what qualifies a hero to enter; the latter concretizes on the meaning of the story.

Atlantis appears to be, at first, the greatest sacrifice a man could make. Its inhabitants are the rich and the productive of Earth. Yet, having forsaken the established comforts of the mortal world, with only the Valley's basic tools and resources and the lack of men, the immortals are reduced to to being farmers, grocery-store owners, plumbers, cafeteria-workers--instead of designing and building great cars, engines, masterpiece constructions, or movies.

Wyatt would argue that he's done more here of value than in the real world. Wealth is the means of expanding one's life--two ways to expand one's life: to produce more or to produce it faster. Wyatt is doing things faster, thus manufacturing time. The greater efficiency here is worth it; moreover, he has everything he needs. Nothing is wasted, to reach the end of its course at the mercy of a looter's indifference. It's a mutual effort. Wyatt improves his methods so that the men he serves--only the men of ability--would, in turn, return benefits to him by their subsequent increased productivity. Here, achievement is traded--instead of failure.

A man is not hired because his superior knows that the man will not be able to take over his business and challenge him; instead, only the type of men with such potential is hired. Moreover, businesses compete to rule out the other--but not with the help of laws or machinations to "buy out" a company's well-being, rather, with honest productive work to prove who's better.

Atlantis is the ideal capitalism--capitalism freed of the corruption of the insecure and incompetent.

It is difficult to abandon the real world because it was the product of the men of ability, and it seemed their right to possess it, to live in it and add their individual contributions to it. Yet, one cannot ignore the hell that has become of earth. Galt summarizes his radio speech to come:

Throughout history, it is always the men of ability to moved the world--who fed its people, who invented the technology to move it forward, who produced the fount of work. He produces, and would die to produce, because of his love of achievement and existence, and yet he lets the villains cripple him with the notion that he should be guilty of his glory.

Man--man's mind--has consistently been sacrificed--to the soul, to the body. When a man denounces his mind, it is because his goal is of a nature the mind would not permit to confess. Contradictions are preached with the knowledge that someone will accept the burden of the impossible; destruction is the price of any contradiction.

By the despoiling of reason, this has become the age of the common man--the human Incompetent, the "man who may claim to the extent of such distinction as he has managed not to achieve. (679)" The man of ability, the complete opposite, is thus the slave of the Incompetent; the man of ability has no voice, must work for him--must atone for his guilt of being competent.

They are counting on the producers to go on to save them from the consequences of their ludicrous new world miasma. Whether or not the plan may have longetivity is beyond their concern; "their plan is only that the loot shall last their lifetime." It's always lasted, and precedence and history are heavy founts of faith they lounge on.

This time, however, the men of ability have gone on strike. The looters can believe whatever they want--they will believe it and exist with it without the help of the heroes... an either-or statement with potentially hazardous consequences.

Chapter 20: The Sign of the Dollar

2005-08-20T22:38:00.000-07:00

The most obvious significance of the sign of the dollar is that of Owen Kellog's brief speech on the meaning of the dollar: that it is the monogram of the U.S.--and of depravity. Yet, the sign of the dollar plays many other roles in the chapter.

As Dagny looks out the window of the Taggart Comet, she sees the products of money--or, rather, the remnants of money. The closed factories, the conveniences--a beaten up car, an ice cream parlor--simple luxuries allowed only by the once-existence of the factories. They are remnants of an age when the sustenance of one's life had not been made a crime, when money was still pure. They won't last.

Knowing that she can't stand the sight alone, Dagny heads towards the train diner. On her way, she meets a tramp about to be kicked off the train. The tramp, despite his beaten-up jacket, holds an air of dignity about him, and she offers him board as a guest in her car. The tramp is Jeff Allen, a shop-foreman in the Twentieth Century Motor Company.

Allen tells Dagny of the insiders perspective of the fall of the company. How practically everyone had voted for the plan for "each to work to the best of his ability, to each the extent of his need." How anyone who disagreed with it would be deemed as base as a child-killer. How the real reason why people agreed to it was that they saw only the people above them--how they could loot from them--and forgot about everyone below who would leech ichor from them.

It was how the happiness of the producers was not deemed a "need" and was thus sacrificed for petty deeds, such as braces for an ugly girl's teeth to raise her self-esteem. It was how the producers are punished when the company's productivity declined. It was how the producers started hiding their ability to avoid punishment. Need claimed ability, above all, and by right of the majority--by vote--one could not gauge one's own ability.

It was how "the man who never could" capitalized on the concept of the "needy"--how they mulched as much as they could, bringing every relative they knew in as a "dependent," becoming obscenely promiscuous to sire babies to further their list of human dependents--the fellow needy part of the looter's keep.

It was about the good man being forced to become bad. The good man, enchained by their negating virtue, would feel ashamed of every mouthful of food he took, thinking that it could have gone to a more needful purpose--how anything they use is not as needed as when someone else could use it. People began hating friends for having babies--it would take more from the "company family" than the collective could afford; every dependent meant another drain.

But, really, it was about the hypocrisy of the proprietors--the Starnes heirs. Of Eric, the Director of Public Relations, who wanted undeserved love, and thought that by reminding everyone (the untruth) that he gave them the factory, they would love him. Of Gerald, who pranced around in exorbitant riches, claiming his profligate spendings was for the need of the public image of the company--at a time when workers had to sacrifice their favorite pasttimes and forms of amusement, when they couldn't afford to send their children to college. Of Ivy, the Director of Distribution, who dictated who is classified as the "needy" and who as the "punished"--a mutually exclusive dichotomy whose gauge is nothing but the illegitimacy of bootlicking: Ivy would punish those she doesn't like and award those who kiss up to her. Playing god when she didn't have the creative power in her to run the company without the men she punishes, she adhered to the creed of "Those whom I choose to live lives," thereby choosing the death of the company... and issuing the death warrent to the motor of the world.

While the communistic microcosm of the Twentieth Century Motor Company might be an extreme, it does hold analogies with the world at large at this point in time in Atlas Shrugged. The heroes have already realized that the villains used what is good in them, attempting to shackle them with negating moralities to hide the fact from them. This is, in essence, similar to what the Twentieth Century Motor Company's demise can be summarized as: To work with no chance of seeing or receiving any of the goods of one's work, to work without nourishment, to punished if one doesn't work... the moral law has become the credo to work until the death for the needy--not oneself.

When the train stops to become another frozen train, Dagny lapses its span to find someone to run it. She finds Kellogg, who had been a passenger. They walk down the tracks to find a phone to summon up a crew. (Why didn't they just unhook the engine car and save a bit of walking and time?)

Along the way, they have a conversation of money when Dagny sees "the sign of the dollar" imprinted on Kellogg's box of cigarettes--costing five cents in a pure gold standard. It is something Dagny's inflation-infested money in this world deprecated by looters cannot buy, because it represents an idea that is pure and good but is no longer regarded as one by the mortals on this earth. The sign of the dollar is the emblem of the US, its symbol the monogram of the U and the S.

The US is the only country in the world where money is not gained by force or loot, but by trade--free trade, of mutual benefit; the sign of the dollar is the symbol of man's mind, his right to his own work, his life, his happiness. Owen boldly states that if the sign is now a brand of evil, then people such as himself will accept it and choose to be damned by the world--but they'll wear it as a badge of honor and fight for it to the death.

Chapter 19: The Face Without Pain or Fear or Guilt

2005-08-19T23:09:00.000-07:00

At the end of this chapter, one finds that the face without pain or fear or guilt isn't the face of any of the characters the reader has gotten to known thus far. The heroes all feel pain and guilt. And Eddie feels all three--pain, fear, and guilt.

Francisco comes to visit Dagny in her apartment. Dagny reveals that she is powered by the ultimate act of honor--the belief that she would trade her services, providing transportation, with that of the man of ability, the intransigent mind and the unlimited ambition. She wants to prevent another catastrophe from happening--because that man could have been on her train! Francisco tells her that the man cannot be destroyed.

Rearden comes into Dagny's apartment, and Francisco realizes that the only woman he has ever loved has been taken by Rearden. Francisco's pain is that of a silent victory against his physical rage, the acknowledgment that in his war to rid the world of the villains, he has lost his most dearest. Rearden, too, is outraged by Francisco's presence; Rearden is certain that Francisco has no right to be present, and he slaps Francisco. When he discovers that Francisco is Dagny's first lover before him, he lets his rage out in the form of violent sex--the act of claiming her, as if his and only his, of triumphing against Francisco's getting to her first by owning her now. The section ends with Dagny feeling fear--the express letter from Quentin Daniels implies that he might have been another conquest of the Destroyer--in her frantic calls to reach Quentin. It would be a tentative relief that Dagny receives when Quentin answers; she makes immediate plans to visit him, fearing that the destroyer would get to him soon...

(But, she rides the Comet, instead of taking Rearden's private plane. The Comet will take five days to get there, and she lets herself deal with a bunch of business actions along the way instead of arriving in Utah directly.)

Dagny summons Eddie to her apartment to dictate to him the tasks that must be done in her leave, as well as her plans. Seeing Rearden's robe, Eddie realizes two things about himself: that Dagny is not impregnable (Eddie loves her) and that Dagny is sleeping with Rearden. Eddie reveals this to the worker (Galt), as well as Quentin's location and significance. Eddie feels guilt for loving Dagny, that he shouldn't think about it, and he feels pain as well. But, he also feels fear--that the world is falling apart, that it's all hopeless, that she had once been his hope, their mutual love of life.

The face without pain or fear or guilt is difficult to find.

Chapter 18: By Our Love

2005-08-18T22:36:00.000-07:00

The idea that the heroes are held by bondage to torture--by their love--is made obvious in its application to Dagny Taggart in this short chapter.

Dagny's resignation from Taggart Transcontinental to Woodstock is supposed to be a time of peaceful resting, but she is too often agitated by feelings of despair. She would wake up in the middle of the night with TT tasks that need to be done, analogize the repetition of common events--cooking, gardening, fixing up her cabin--to the futility of a circle; a circle being movement proper to physical nature without consciousness and a straight line--that of the tracks of a railroad--being the "badge fo man." The despair would come when she realizes that it's all useless, and yet, she longs for it--a part of her certain that "the truth and the right" to her railroad were hers. A part of her feels compelled to fight--"her rightful acheivement had been lost, not to some superior power, but to a loathsome evil that conquered by means of impotence"--that renunciation would be more evil than giving up. The pain blunting her capacity to feel joy is tremendous. Once, she had viewed the act of leaving TT as a sort of amputation, and indeed, it is as if a part of her were severed--her love of her work, of TT, makes it seem as if she has sacrificed it to the looters...

Moreover, Dagny is hopefully optimistic. She believes that evil is only temporary and unnatural. Francisco tracks her down (most likely by word from John who heard from Eddie), and he states that "we can never lose the things we live for. We may have to change their form at times, if we've made an error, but the purpose remains the same and the forms are ours to make." In short, the immortals (heroes) create the values and meaning of material objects. (The mortals (looters) would rather prefer that the immortals don't exist, a view that is in sync with their idea that the industrial is completely materialistic, devoid of the spiritual--the mind--that any muscle and brute force can run an industry; the mortals believe that the objects hold both meaning and values.)

The producers created the wealth of the world, but let their enemies write its moral code. Although the heroes live by a different code, they accept punishment for their virtues--betraying their own code. It is the love of the producers that binds them in bondage--the looters know that the producer would bear anything to work and produce. The heroe's moral code is that achievement is man's highest moral purpose, that he can't exist without it, that love of virtue is the love of life. There is no effort too great in the service of one's love, and even if the looters don't know why the heroes love what they do best, the looters know that they love their work and will use that as a neverending source of funds.

Francisco's visit and impending "conquest" would be cut short by the announcement of an emergency broadcast--the Taggart Tunnel catastrophe. It is tragic that Dagny would fight to go back with the desperate intensity of strength of a cornered animal--it is instinctual that she saves her love, her work by which she is bound.

The second section begins with implicating the general reason behind the villains' version of quitting the world. That of escape from the mess they've created, the blame. That they would bribe doctors to claim they've a fatal disease (Locey) or have a pre-written letter of resignation (James Taggart) to escape the consequences of the Winston Tunnel catastrophe.

Taggart attempts to wring from Eddie Dagny's location. Eddie, however, protects her locale, as if guarding a citadel--her sentry against the world. Dagny rushes in, and Eddie collapses into sobs, foreshadowing his deeper attachments to Dagny. Mouch calls, but Dagny does not want to speak to him because of what he did to Rearden (viz., double-cross him while he was Rearden's Washington man for a position in the Bureau), and she would only speak to Mr. Weatherby. She tells Weatherby to not interfere with her work, and it seems like the looter government would comply to her orders completely. Dagny believes they are now on her terms because they need her, but she returns home and finds herself wanting to wash away the metaphorical dirtiness she now feels towards her work.

Chapter 17: The Moratorium on Brains

2005-08-17T23:08:00.000-07:00

The concept of a moratorium on brains is built up to in the two sections preceding the third and final section setting up the catastrophe of the Winston Tunnel. In the first, Eddie tells Galt (currently the anon worker) that he almost quit because of Locey's insistence that the backup diesel in Winston is taken to be used for Morrison's "special," when it's kept there for the far more important issue of backup safety to bridge continental traffic. In the second, Ragnor gives Rearden a bar of gold; Ragnor states that he wanted to give Rearden a piece of the "gold-back" he has been holding as payment for every injustice ever done to Rearden--especially at such a moment, when Rearden has been forced to sign away the rights to the production of Rearden Metal. Ragnor explains the right to his madness--he only loots ships (with items stolen from men like Rearden) sent to people's states. It is amazing that no one notices the trend that the hijacked ships are only "charity" ones, but it is just another of many facts that lead up to the presentation of the moratorium on brains. Ragnor states that there are only two kinds of people left in the world: a looter who robs disarmed victims and a victim who works for the benefit of his own despoilers. The moratorium on brains' source is that of the men with brains realizing that they're the victims, and thus they have relinquished the practical use of their thoughts.

When the Taggart Comet is derailed near Winston, it faces the disgrace of being late by maybe 18 hours--a stigma that's never happened before. There is no diesel nearby to do the task of carrying it forth. Yet, the tunnel is eight miles long, with horrible ventilation, and a coal-burning engine would basically suffocate everyone aboard the train. On the most superficial level, the tragic catastrophe of the Winston Tunnel happens because a coal-burning engine is sent in despite the promise of catastrophe in the act.

The moratorium on brains does not imply that there is a lack of brains everywhere. While it's true that after the local train people panic and contact New York--James Taggart and Locey--the executives only end up issue ambiguous orders more or less along the lines of "just do it; I don't care the means, but you're screwed if you don't do it." Superiors are supposed to be ones with superior abilities--and in this case, they should have been able to provide directions on how to do it. But, they couldn't, and it's up to the locals. The locals, however, do have brains, and it is heart-wrenching to observe their forced bar on their own thought processes.

The foreman realizes that if he loses his job, his family would bear the burden. His family is his greatest pride and love, and he can't let them starve. Because of the Unification Board, if he loses this job, he wouldn't be able to find another one, even though he is a competent man. But, the restrictions of Directive 10-289 has put him in a bad rut: He is faced with the decision of sacrificing either his family's livelihood or the lives of the anonymous on the Comet. He goes with his family's. He knows that if he does not summon the engine, the board would take it out on him. The policy of the day requires obeying orders and restrains a man from thinking. If he thinks, the products of his labors would be futile because he wouldn't be able to follow suit with his logical deduction.

Even Dave Mitchum, the lackey who spent his whole life complaining that no one told him to do it and that it was just bad luck that he had trouble getting a job, is capable of thinking. He reasons out the consequences of sending the train into the tunnel with a coal-burner, and he reasons out the consequences of failing to do action. His direct orders from Locey (who, after sending the order had run away from the world) is to send Mr. Chalmers into the tunnel without delay. He comes to the idea that he could follow suit directly, sending Chalmers' car into the tunnel, but then the danger of the situation would have been obviated. While that would be the most rational thing to do, as apparently Chalmers does not realize the dangers of sending a coal-burner into the tunnel and wants the train to be moved despite the blatent impossibility of it, Dave does not go with it. Instead, he realizes that he must do the thing he does best. He, too, follows the trend of sending ambiguous orders to his lessers--ambiguous because otherwise blame would be attached to him. He realizes the ponderous nature of the matter and makes the excuse of going off to a nearby station to find a diesel. When the rest of the staff in the station quits, he leaves a boy in charge of making the decision to issue the order to send the coal-burner.

It is said that catastrophes are the result of pure chance. Yet, the thought processes of each local are far from random. The state of affair of the country itself--the fact that the Directive has been enacted and the fact that the railroad executives are morons--are all key factors affecting the affair, and arguably sources fueling its potency. It isn't randomity that allowed those events to happen... And, it is with fatalistic beauty that a boy who follows order based on the faith of the competence of railroad executives would be the one who tells them to send the dastard into the oblivion of the tunnel. The boy who is a victim working for his despoilers has to be the one to make the final decision because there are only two types of people left in the world, and looters can't do jack.

The moratorium on brains is essentially due to the restraints put on brains from following their own common sense--people are prevented from carrying out the product of their logical thought. Instead, the credo of the day is that one shouldn't think, one should just obey. The last thing those on the train see is Wyatt's Torch--a symbol representing the ultimatum "brain then life or no brain then death." The fettered brain leads to myriad deaths.

Chapter 16: Miracle Metal

2005-08-16T23:52:00.000-07:00

This chapter is about miracles--in the pejorative sense. A miracle is something extraordinary that happens by means of divine intervention--supernatural forces beyond a human's domain of influence. What the villains need in their enactment of Directive 10-289 on May 1st is a miracle, and it is symbolic that Rearden Metal is to be renamed Miracle Metal--after all, the hard work that went into inventing it doesn't exist because rationality and the mind don't; it's all muscle, the repetitive labor that the blue-collar workers put into it, and with no mind involved, only a miracle could create anything.

The League of Non-Extraordinary men meet to discuss the problems of the nation. There's James Taggart, Orren Boyle, Floyd Ferris, Clemen Weatherby, Eugene Lawson, Wesley Mouch, and two new guys: Fred Kinnen and Mr. Thompson. Apparently, Mr. Thompson is something of a world controller, but unlike the breed of perfectly-bred man--whose life had been pre-planned from his genetic map to be not prone to one bit of chance--the "sole secret of Thompson's life was the fact that he was a product of chance and knew it and aspired to nothing else."

At the roundtable discussion, complaints are brought up, but it is always money that is the bar to ameliorating the complaints. Observe the structure of speech (paraphrased):

FK: Men with starving families to feed need jobs. Thus, they'll need a 1/3 increase to pay.
JT: But, where does the $ come from?
FK: Well, need is above all.
JT: (establishes understanding of a mystic sort) Well, I do understand the plight of working men... if the frieght rates could be doubled...
OB: Can't even afford the current rates!
JT: Need requires that we make sacrifices. Need is above your profits.
OB: Whoever said anything about profit. I've never profitted, especially when considered to (implied) Rearden. But, if I could get a subsidy for the next year or two, until things get better.
CW: But, you haven't paid any of your loans! We've granted you myriad extensions, suspensions, moratoriums. Where do you expect us to get money from for a subsidty:
WM: I need wider powers! (his constant whining)
Mr T: Well, gentlemen, let's go ahead and declare it a state of total emergency. Enact 10-289

Need is always made to appear as if some sort of essential virtue. Understanding of need or claiming that one hasn't profited (thus has need) opens way to a new request. Money is the bar against the new request... until the gov resorts to what only they can do--make something worthless valuable by enacting directives, akin to hiding bankrupcy in the midst of a bunch of laws. The trouble with that is that it will, ultimately, clash with another bar of money... when the moratorium on brains wrecks its toll.

When Dagny finds that the Directive has been enacted, she resigns.

Rearden discovers the gratest mistake of his life, and he atones for it by selling his Metal. His realization sheds light on the source of pain in the world for the men of virtue.

Rearden realizes that the villains' punishment is one that requires the victim's own virtue. That his possession of Rearden Metal--the creation which resulted from his exercise of the highest moral purpose, to exercise the best of his effort and the fullest capacity of his mind--was used as a cause for expropriation. That Dagny's honor and their love would be used as blackmail (when Ferris threatens to publicize this as some base scandel if he refuses to sign away Rearden Metal). That the millions of people in the People's States were held by means of their desire to live, "by means of their energy drained in forced labor, by means of their ability to feed their masters, by means of a hostage system of their love for their children, wives, friends." Essentially, they are held by means of their joy tied to fear or threat; they are enslaved by whatever living power they possess. (Joy: motive power of every living being.) The only man with nothing to fear would be the man without v irtues--there are no chains shackling him. Virtues thus became agents of destruction, binding heroes to their torture racks. One's best became the tools of agony, and life on earth became impractical.

Rearden had broken the code of accepting joy as depravity, but he had fallen into the trap. He damned himself, his existence, by hiding the affair--by seeing it as base, his happiness as evil, letting Dagny bear the disgrace when he should have divorced Lillian and married Dagny. He had thought that he would be the only person who would suffer under injustice, but:

"When one acts on pity against justice, it is the good whom one punishes for the sake of the evil; when one saves the guilty from suffering, it is the innocent whom one forces to suffer."

There is no escape from justice, just like how a payment cannot remain unpaid. If the guilty do not have to pay for it, then the innocent do. Rearden reaches the conclusion that he would become guiltless: by signing off Rearden Metal, he would "pay off" his guilt. He would accept his love for Dagny as the pure, and he would accept the solidity of his mistake--that of viewing it as a furtive evil--by relinquishing his Metal... because otherwise, it would be Dagny, the innocent, who has to pay, and he, the guilty.

He would remain faithful to the one commandment of his code he had never broken: "to be man who pays for his own way."

Chapter 15: Account Overdrawn

2005-08-15T23:34:00.000-07:00

This chapter is about money, in both its solid absolute form and its relative "friendship" currency. Specifically, it is about running out of money: what one has to do in the event of an account overdrawn. More specifically, it is about how running out of money is transferred.

Railroads connect the country, and without it, producers would not be able to send their stuff to others, and they would produce at a loss. The chapter begins with the plight of various smaller industries due to the growing inefficiency of the stifled railroads. Many of the cases are due to the various directives: the limits on speed of the train and the limits on Rearden metal, crucially needed to reinforce bridges. In winter, the country is depicted as a place about to crumble, people dying of hunger, lack of heating systems rending eternal coughs--even the skyline of New York has been decapitated down to the 25th floor in order to conserve energy. Those with "friends," of course, could obtain essential need permission to run elevators above certain floors. The vast majority of people suffer when the goods of the producers have been stifled--when Taggart trains are bridled down to run at the arbitrary and inefficent specifications of the directive, when Rearden is forbidden to sell enough metal to the producers who could truly make use of his metal. Without the brilliance of production, the public welfare is doomed, the account from which they need to survive on overdrawn.

The board of Taggart Transcontinental meets along with with the government-assigned vulture, C. Weatherby. They discuss how to pull TT together. The chairman suggests that the John Galt Line is running at a loss, and that it has the best rails in the country. He does not directly imply that the John Galt Line should be cut. It takes the men much deliberation, much "it seems to me," and "it is my opinion that" before they finally make the vote to end the JG Line--a vote in which Dagny steps out from. Prior to this, Weatherby had suggested that they raise the wages, against the unamious decision of the Alliance of Railroads; it would win back Wesley's friendship for James Taggart. However, Taggart exclaims that TT can't afford that. Weatherby shrugs it off as "merely a suggestion," and he sits back and quietly await the men to make progress. When the men have finally decided to end the JG Line, Weatherby breaks from his inertia and points out that because the railroad is a venue of public service, they would need to obtain permission from the government before they could do that. Special need, of course, could be granted if Taggart raises the wages. Such would be impossible, however, and this will later (sometime after this meeting) give Weatherby the advantage of giving Taggart an option other than raising wages--a possibly impossible option, that of giving the government the dirt on Rearden. Taggart is beginning to find that his credit card of friendship is starting to max out.

Dagny and Rearden take their last ride on the JG Line. People panic to board the train, but none of them think through their actions, and it is as if they're running around like lemmings. A great track had to be disassembled in order to pay for the debt of production--a debt created and nurtured by directives concocted for "friends".

Taggart is desperate, and he schedules a lunch meeting with Lillian Rearden--the woman who could deliver him Rearden. Taggart needs to pay Weatherby/Mouch, and because he cannot raise the railroad wages, he has to find information with which to blackmail Rearden with. Moreover, the task is even more arduous than finding any common dirt--it has to be foolproof, as the scandel with Dannager had not weakened Rearden. Taggart is a bit disappointed when Lillian tells him that Rearden is not a bit less recalcitrant even after the prospect of destroying the John Galt Line, but when he hints at his difficulties with the government, Lillian understands the picture. In exchange for having Taggart at her mercy, Lillian would give him the ultimate dirt on Rearden. Lillian, of course, had just promised Taggart a payment she does not currently possess. It is now Lillian whose account is overdrawn.

Lillian gets lucky and she discovers who Rearden's mistress is. When she confronts Rearden about this, she makes it clear that she does not want to divorce him, although Rearden finds it puzzling. Lillian has her own ulterior motive for maintaining the officiality of her marriage, and it is appropos that it would be she who succeeds at delivering her to Taggart and Mouch. The drain is now put into Rearden's account, as he has just given Lillian the ultimate dirt over him, one which has the potential to bankrupt him of possession of his metal: the possibility of the media muckracking his scandalous affair with Dagny Taggart.

(Appendum to Sanction of the Victim) After his trial, Rearden breaks free of the chains of absolute laws. He breaks laws and manipulates deals in order to do what he knows is right. He gives dagny the rails she'd need, even though it would have to be given secretly.)

Chapter 14: The Sanction of the Victim

2005-08-14T23:27:00.000-07:00

The first two section introduces the issue and Rearden's response of it, that he won't give the sanction of the victim, while the third deals mainly with Francisco's cueing Rearden in on the sanction Rearden still gives...

In their Thanksgiving dinner, although an exorbitant amount of money has been spent on it, Philip, Lillian, and Rearden's mother do not thank him for the meal, but thank others--the cook, God, and even the poor who might starve tonight. Lillian recaps on the modern morality, while stressing the fact that Rearden should not believe he is better than anyone else--capable of upholding some absolute right, as if absolutes exist in a world of relatives--because she knows that he is as depraved as any other man (viz. his furtive relationship with Dagny). Philip recites the bromide of the newspaper, insulting Rearden, saying that businessmen are taking advantage of the national emergency, that Rearden had violated the public welfare by selling Dannager the metal, and that he deserved to be punished. This section serves to reiterate much of the brainwashed public's opinion that will be used against Rearden in his trial the day after Thanksgiving.

Rearden's trial is reminiscent of Howard Hughe's trial: the judge and jury have been replaced by three men appointed by the government. When asked for his defense, Rearden refuses on the basis that the "law" holds that there are no principles. One of the three judges point out that Rearden is denying the principle of the public good, but Rearden questions the solidity of the ideal, the ambiguity of its various terms--such as who is the public? Rearden remains stoic: plain and truthful. He gives the judges the right to impose the punishment, but the judges claim that, by legal requirement, he needs to give a defense. Rearden will not play in the charade of feigned justice--will not help preserve the appearance of rationality when force is used as the final arbiter. "'But the law compels you to volunteer a defense!'" Rearden claims his right to his own volition--which cannot be forced--that if they were to impose punishment, they will have to drag him to jail, that if they were to seize his property, they will have to hire looters to physically steal it. The eldest judge attempts to belittle Rearden's stance. The judge recognizes Rearden's standing up for a sort of principle, but he is derisive, pointing out that Rearden is only fighting for his property, freedom to make money, nothing but his own profit. This introduces Rearden's stance:

He tells those present--the triumvirate judges, the crowd of gathered public in the court room--that he is in full agreement with the facts in the newspapers, but not with the evaluation. He works for mutual consent to mutual advantage. He has earned every penny on his own, and he is proud of every single penny. He would not pay more than what something is worth and he would not want to sell his product for a loss; he is earning his living as every honest man must. "I refuse to accept as guilt the fact of my own existence, and the fact that I must work to support it."

He states that he refuses to accept as guilt the fact that he's good at it, that he can do it better than most people, that his work is of greater values than of others--he refuses to apologize for his success. He has done more good for the public than the public can ever do, but he would refuse to state this because he does not seek the good of others as a sanction for his right to exist; he does not recognize the good of others to justify their right to seize his capital or to destroy his life--that the purpose of his work is for his own good, and he despises a man who would sacrifice his own good.

Rearden goes on to attacking the ambiguous credo of the public good:

The public does not serve the public good--"nobody's good can be achieved at the price of human sacrifices," and that when one man's right is violated, everyone else's right is, too--"a public of rightless creatures is doomed to destruction (445)." He does not challenge the policy but the moral premise, the morality of sacrifice--that if he were asked to sacrifice himself for the interests of society apart from his own, he would refuse, "reject it as the most contemptible evil... with full confidence of the justice of his battle and of a living being's right to exist."

If it is now the belief that the public requires victims, then: "The public good be damned, I will have no part of it!"

When the crowd bursts into applause, Rearden is surprised, but he soon realizes a heavier guilt. "If we who were the movers, the providers, the benefactors of mankind, were willing to let the brand of evil be stamped upon us and silently to bear punishment for our virtues--what sort of "good" did we expect to triumph in the world? (447)" He realizes that while these people are cheering him on, tomorrow they would clamor for a new directive from Mouch. "What made them believe that this earth was a realm of evil where despair was their natural fate? (447)" The judges had imposed on him the paltry fine of $5000, but Rearden realizes that the real sentencec imposed on him is to discover the answer to that question.

The third section starts with the verbal comments of those close to Rearden, and then diverges to the smear of words by his fellow businessmen. His fellow businessmen tell Rearden that they do not agree with his stance, that they're proud they are working for the public good, having a good higher than earning his meals, while Mowen (who is too simple-minded to grasp the full nature of Rearden's speech) builds playgrounds for charity in order to prove that not all businessmen are bad. Rearden responds with, "I am sorry that I will be obliged to save your goddamn necks along with mine."

Rearden finally lets himself visit Francisco d'Anconia, who is a few floors above him in the Wayne-Falkland Hotel. Rearden is happily surprised that Francisco heard his trial over the radio, but he comes up to talk to Francisco in attempt to change him from being a playboy by asking him "no matter what you've given up, so long as you choose to remain alive, how can you have any pleasure in spending a life as valuable as yours on running after cheap women and on an imbecile's idea of diversions?" Francisco's reply expounds upon Rand's theory of sex, simultaneously tying it with the meaning of the novel:

"Sex is not the cause, but an effect and an expression of man's sense of own value." The man who attempts to reverse the law of cause and effect by trying to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind is akin to the man who despies himself and tries to gain self-esteem from sexual adventures.

The men who think that wealth comes from material means with no intelligence are the same who think that sex is independent of one's mind, choice or code of values. That love and whim are akin.

"In fact, a man's sexual choice is the rsesult and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. (453)"

Sex is the most profoundly selfish act, the act that cannot be performed for any motive but for one's own enjoyment. It is an act that forces one to stand naked in spirit as well as in body. "He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience--or to fake--a sense of self-esteem." The man who is proudly certain of his own values will be attracted to a heroine, and not a brainless slut, because only she would give him a sense of achievement. He would seek not to gain it but to express his value.

A man who is convinced of his own worthlessness will be drawn to the woman who reflects his own secret self--"she will release him from that objective reality in which he is a fraud." Because love is one's response to one's highest values, when a man corrupts his sense of love by seeing it not as admiration but as charity, not in response to values, but to flaws, he would have torn himself in two. His body will not obey him, and it will always follow the ultimate logic of his deepest convictions. If flaws are values, then he has declared existence evil, and only the evil will attract him--he would feel that depravity is all he is worthy of enjoying. He would deny what his body does as sin, "that vice is the only realm of pleasure," and he will wonder why love brings him nothing but shame.

Francisco points out that Rearden has never accepted their creed. Even if Rearden has damned sex as evil, he would still find himself--against his will--actin on the proper moral premise. That he would know that just as an idea unexpressed in physical action is contemptible hypocrisy, so is platonic love. Just as physical action unguided by an idea is a fool's self fraud, so is sex when cut off from one's code of values. He would be incapable of loving a woman he despises.

The idealist man vs the practical man--both severed in mind and body. The idealist despies the material, but he cries with despair because he can feel nothing for the woman he respects, finds himself in bondage for a slut. The practical despises principles, philosophy and his own mind, regarding acquisition of material objects as the only goal of existence. He does not consider the purpose of his material acquisition, expecting them to give him pleasure, and he wonders why the more objects he accumulates, the less he feels. He will not acknowledge his need of self-esteem because he does not believe in a concept of moral value, but he feels profound self-contempt from believing he is just a piece of meat; he will not acknowledge that sex is the physical expression of a tribute to personal values--but he knows this. He chases after mindless women, bedding them (the effect) to gain a sense of his own values (the cause). He seeks the feeling of achievement, but he will never find it.

As for the women "chasing after" Francisco: The same theory applies to them, except what they seek isn't a sense of one's value, but rather, the impression on and the envy of other women. (Recall how Lillian defended Rearden's celebacy in her tea party; on first analysis, it seems like she's helping him, but on second thought, she's actually defending herself--affixing herself as the only woman of Rearden's to the envy of other women.)

Chapter 13: White Blackmail

2005-08-13T23:46:00.000-07:00

Crucial to blackmail--of any kind--is the transferring of information. More pertinent is discovering the motive power with which to spike up that blackmail. White blackmail is no exception. Its most obvious definition is that implied by Ferris when he blackmails Rearden about his illicit deal with Dannager: Ferris speaks of it as if it were perfectly normal, without the sense of gloating, but with a sense of safety, comradeship (though based in self-contemp). White blackmail is blackmail that has been standardized and so ubiquitously perpetuated it is no longer considered malice but standard procedure--as if its common usage could justify it, could whiten its blackness. A deeper and more general definition of blackmail--any blackmail--is that of knowing a man's motive power or a source that would affect it and using that knowledge to get something out of the man--good or bad. Every single section in this chapter follows that definition--except for the first, which introduces the stuff that'll be used for blackmail, white.

When Dagny tells Rearden that there is no need for her to forgive him, she explains it by stating that she would never give him what he does not deserve--that she would worship him for what he is worth, the Rearden Metal he has created and his sedulity towards his craft, but she would not sacrifice her railroad for him. Justice for justice, where one does not have the right to demand pain as payment for one's pleasure--that any trade where one gains and the other loses is a fraud. Her motive is to attempt to relieve Rearden of the immense pain she observed when he was forced to bring Lillian in the guise of his wife in Dagny's presence. The fact that Rearden does not yet come to forgive himself foreshadows the means which which others will use to blackmail him.

Lillian had stayed in Rearden's hotel room the whole night in attempt to catch him in his mis-deed. She believes that he is having an affair, although she mistakes his view of sex as that of the common depraved man--that he'd find pleasure in playing lothario to nameless, mindless, sluts on the street. Rearden's absense in his apartment vindicates her suspicions, but she does not carry the standard suit; she does not require divorce. Instead, she makes a demand which Rearden believes he is responsible for, as it was he who brought Lillian to this loathsome state. Ultimately, she verbalizes the fetters that have kept Rearden from his happiness. She claims that because he, too, has succumbed to the base actions of animalistic desire, he is no better than any other man. He has no right to condemn others. The fact that she wants him to know this, while claiming her right to his property--she being the pure one who has refused him sex--and the fact that he allows her to walk away alive... means that she still pulls Rearden's strings. She uses her knowledge of Rearden's tendency to perfection, to do what is just and to uphold a personal sense of just morality, against him. She also uses the fact that Rearden is still plagued by the orthodox view, that he would die to uphold the vows he had made to her--however bereft of meaning. With this hold on Rearden, Lillian has denied him of his property--his home--and she has attempted to debase him by making him think that he is as low as any other man.

Dr. Floyd Ferris prances into Rearden's office confirming the State Science Institute's orders of Rearden metal. Unlike the attempt of the previous lackey, Ferris believes he'd succeed. His confidence is due to the fact that he has blackmail over Rearden--he knows of the furtive illicit deal Rearden made with Dannager. The significant fine for that would be 10 years in prison. Ferris also accidentally reveals the purpose of laws, which explains for why such ludicrous directives have been set up. Precisely because these producers seem like such ideal, flawless men--the fact that they cannot find any crack in them to scandalize--the villains are reduced to making laws that have to be broken, so that they can create guilt in order to create criminals. Ferris would aptly put it, stating that the power of any government is the ability to "crack down criminals." When there aren't any, they're forced to make criminals (contrast make money). While Ferris meant that statement to assert his own belief in the potency of his words, it actually answers many of Rearden's unanswered questions. Moreover, it serves as the impetus allowing him to deny the order and stand up against the consequences of court. (Fortunately, court has not been abolished, yet, in this increasingly dystopic authoritarian society.) It is Rearden's first refusal to let the villain cash in on his guilt, but he is yet to discover the greater guilt that others hold upon him.

And then Willers talks to Galt (thus far, the un-named blue-collar worker). Galt uses the info from Eddie to power his blackmail against the world (looter's world). Galt already knows Dannager's motive power, but because of the urgency of Dagny's visit, he'd have to get there in time--while the fact that someone always quits after Eddie talks to this worker might be used as clues to cue in the reader as to what kind of person the destroyer is, one might also suspect that Galt believes Dagny is a worthy nemesis, that perhaps she might sway Dannager to not quit, ever.

Galt pulls Dannager. He manages to sway Dannager because he is the type of man Galt is--they share a common motive power. (They both started working at age twelve, too.) Galt uses his knowledge of him to get him to quit--to extract from the world the man who holds the greatest burden of the world on his shoulders.

Francisco, then, attempts to pull Rearden. But, Rearden is not yet ready for this--his love of his mills is too great, as when the emergency occurred, Rearden was willing to sacrifice his life for fixing it. Francisco, however, found himself reacting similarly. Francisco's attempts to cue Rearden into cognizance of that greater guilt fails... because Rearden is not yet ready to accept the full course of action one must take against that greater guilt--the subtle white blackmail which the world uses against him, the knowledge that Rearden would work for his love of his mils and that the looters would ride as hitchhikers and he wouldn't mind that because he believes it causes him very little, when in fact, it has caused him his happiness. Although Francisco explictly puts into words what pull the villains have over Rearden--that Rearden accepts the undeserved guilt by need, which the villains offer, as justification for his torture--Rearden cannot abandon the world, because of his love for his mills.

Chapter 12: The Aristocracy of Pull

2005-08-12T18:29:00.000-07:00

The Aristocracy of Pull is most obviously (even explictly stated, quite eloquently by Francisco) the one replacing the aristocracy of money, "pull" referring to one's ability to trade men instead of money. This essence of this theme is aptly present in all four sections of this chapter.

The chapter begins with Dagny almost emotionlessly killing yet another line--the death of each line is the direct product of the end of a great industrialist. She recalls what Nielsen said to her, that Marsh had told him no matter what, Marsh would leave him some clue about the Destroyer--the cause of the disappearance of the producers. The fact that Marsh had left nothing to explain his sudden disappearance foreshadows the irresistability of the Destroyer, as well as the fact that the conclusion he leads his conquest to cannot be passed on to a man who is not yet ready to accept it. Who is pulling these producers into quitting? While on one level, it is the corruption the world has succumbed to, it is Galt's touch that finalizes their action: his directing them to realize the depravity of the world and their haggard commitment to save the earth, which has been reduced to a container of evil. Dagny knows exactly which man will leave next because Galt strikes exactly the man whom other industries depend on the most on. By eradicating the core of production, Galt means to efficiently destroy the world. He would do so by a form of "pull" not known to the looters and moochers--that of convincing a man through providing the final hints towards the unavoidable conclusion and of offering him a place in the real earth: Galt's Gulch.

After discovering that his only sources of enjoyment has to be hidden as guilty secrets--that of the illicit transaction with Dannager and that of his relationship with Dagny, Hank becomes suspect to Lillian's trap. Lillian Rearden pulls Hank by reminding him of the duties of a husband--as decreed by orthodox society, fettered by ways that were meant to bridle greater men. Yet, Hank does not realize that she has dragged him into attending James Taggart's wedding only by his consent--he is the only one capable of giving her the sanction of the victim. Vaguely, Hank admits that the day he finds out why his joy has to be held as sin, that he would be forced to do what he considers the depraved for the sake of obligation, every question of his life would be answered. Hank submits to the husband's duty--that he attends to event not because he wants it, but only because she wants it; not for his sake but hers (Lillian). Lillian achieves her goal because Rearden is a virtuous man. Rearden would not deny the right that was claimed of him--but he would bear any form of damnation. Moreover, he has no rightful reason for refusal (he has not yet come to believe in the greater sanctity of his relationship with Dagny). Finally, he would not allow himself to beg (to not go). The hold--"the achievement of power over men"--that Lillian has over Rearden is archetypical to that of what the villains use against the hero.

Would it be correct to say that James Taggart pulls Cherryl Brooks or the other way around? Taggart would have the public believe that he has been very generous, giving Cherryl unearned respect, the supreme gesture of charity, in his whim to marry her. Yet, the sheer fact that he wants them to photograph her in her hovel of a home--and refuses to offer her hospice despite the evident embarassment it causes her, renders doubt to who pulls whom. While it is true that Taggart pulls Cherryl's strings with his inherited money, it is actually Cherryl who is the one deserving of greater respect--and, in a way, it is she who gives him power. Taggart's depravity requires that he finds someone who genuinely believes that he is good, one of the men he secretly admires yet despises. Cherryl believes Taggart is such a man, in her innocence. Yet, Cherryl is a person capable of experiencing the emotion behind the hero-worshipping. She would attempt to grasp another means of meeting up to his worth because she does not believe he needs her worship. She grabs the quickest consolution she can find, the evidence that Taggart is lonely and that others seem to despise him; thus, she can offer him the sincerety of a feeling as the recognition he deserved. Cherryl is pulled by the good in her, while Taggart is drawn by this good with the wish to destroy it. Because of Cherryl's background and level of intelligence and because of the similar nature of reverence for the good and great she shares with the heroes, she is the easiest form of "revenge" Taggart can use against the heroes. Although, in this case, it is really to sate his own lack of ego.

Taggart's wedding is revealing, and in a way, it is the reprise of the Rearden wedding anniversary. The secret motive of "men" is made known: that of the aristocracy of pull replacing that of the aristocracy of money. That is, the one with friends in Washington is the one with power; men who hold the puppeteer strings are now the ones who run the world and money (what it represents) is no longer the means of making a deal. This is exemplified by Boyle and Scudder's analysis of the men who attend Taggart's wedding, classifying each as either to "favor" or "fear," i.e., to pull Taggart up or let him climb on them; thus, it is true that the act of coming to his party is equivalent to an action of automatic disgrace to the men who had come.

The villains all flock to the most obvious conclusion that it is those men in Washington who hold has the power to "move" the world, while those who know of Galt's Gulch know that it is Galt who does. As Francisco introduces the statement of the aristocracy of pull, Taggart attempts to deny it via ignorance. The nature of this new aristocracy is depraved, and thus the men who practice it deny it, but they know it as the naughty secret of the next man--thus each pulling the strings of the other. Wesley Mouch's ascent to power eptomizes the underhand nature of this pulling. Boyle had suggested that Taggart help machinate Mouch a position in the Bureau of Economic Planning in exchange for the favor of effecting the Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule. Taggart had held power over Mouch in the depraved actions he made Mouch do for Mouch's success. The power of holding the blackmail of scandel, however, lessens as the blackmailed man becomes more powerful. Taggart learns this first hand when Mouch does not show up at his party--an action that greatly stresses him and allows Boyle to pin onto him longer as a "friend."

The ugly nature of the pull of "friendship" is to be emphasized, as friends double-cross each other for their own--gasps--selfish reasons. Notice that when Taggart needed Rearden Metal for his rails, he would deny Boyle his needed sure source of buyers for his steel. Taggart would claim that this is because Boyle had betrayed him in trying to eradicate the moratorium on railroad bonds.

Finally, d'Anconia comes to the party and pulls both Rearden and basically everyone else at the party. He talks of the nature of money--saying that it is the root of all good, that even though the villains also use it as a tool, it was the producers who made the money in order for it to be abused. Moreover, it is still something that can pull the villains, even though they claim that money is the root of all evil--as when d'Anconia hints at the incoming doom of d'Anconia Copper to an unsuspecting businessman, the resulting chaos and commotion over finding a phone to sell all stocks shows that people do care about money, despite the fact that they try to deny and denounce it.

The root of the aristocracy of pull is that of the pejorative view of money. The world steps into its stages of destruction when men believe that money is evil. The only person who will not do business directly in his own name either doesn't want others to know he's rich or doesn't want others to know how he got that way--because the looters and moochers have "redefined" the notion of "making" money by their bondage through friendship, they thus cannot afford to do business directly and cannot handle money openly. The faith required of one who would depend on a friend for his well-being summarizes how one can use this aristocracy of pull to wreck havoc on the world of "men" (pejorative sense).

Chapter 11: The Man Who Belonged On Earth

2005-08-11T22:20:00.000-07:00

The man who belonged on earth is actually the man to whom the earth belonged. The first two sections allude to Stadler's memories of a man who should have moved the world by now if he were still alive--in later chapters, his identity will be revealed as John Galt. While thinking of Rearden, Dagny verbalizes in her mind the title and association above belonging to Rearden. The last two sections reveal that Rearden is akin to Galt in that he is an earlier version of him, one who has come to cogent grips with the evils of reality, but has not yet come to the conclusion to shrug.

The great Dr. Robert Stadler is presented in the context of a fragile self-restraint. He wishes that it wouldn't be cold and he tells himself that he isn't vexed by Dr. Floyd Ferris' new book, Why Do You Think that You Think? He looks out into the distance at a patch of light in the midst of clouds, as if it brings him the hope that there is an intelligence akin to his in the world. Ferris arrives late due to unavoidable car-problems. When Stadler confronts him as to why he wrote the book--especially when it is libel to the imprint of the State Science Institute--Ferris tells him that it is meant to make them popular: people don't want to think, but they believe it is a sin not to think, thus they will bless and follow anyone who makes a virtue out of what they know to be their sin. Ferris claims that the public is intrinsically bereft of intelligence, that this issue should not waste the time of one such as Stadler, and when he rises to leave, Stadler is forced to end his inquisition, lest he loses face. It is his greatness that is the defining trademark of the institute, but it is as if he has been reduced to a mere prisoner. He cannot outright denounce the work, and yet his name is used to countenance it. It is as if his greatness--which, in allowing the Institute to bear his name, he has let the Institute own--has been drained from him. As he looks out into the distance at the dying patch of light in the sky, Stadler fears what Galt, once his most promising student, would think.

As the boys with friends in Washington reap in their kill, the "field day of the little fellow" becomes his hey-day. After Wyatt's fire, the lesser oil companies had banded together to supply what Wyatt had once provided. A fortune "requiring no competence or effort" is bound to run out. When the lack of resources makes it so that the cost of production is more than the profit, the little fellow dies out--unless he has friends in Washington. Washington would provide them emergency subsidies, and the like, as if by magic. James Taggart runs trains in "blighted" areas for the public good even when there isn't enough transportation for the industrial centers--because he receives huge amounts of government subsidies for the act, he believes he has made great profits for Taggart Transcontinental. Yet, where does the money truly come from? It is the moratorium on railroad bond-paying that supplies the funding--it is at the livelihood of men who had worked hard to earn their money and entrusted it in railroad bonds. The hellishness of this all is abated by the thought of finding the man who created the motor, and Dagny allows herself to meet with Stadler regarding this. Stadler claims that he knows no man who can make it, that such a man must have died a long time ago--that he has to be dead--and he suggests Quentin Daniels, who might be able to piece it together. Stadler desperately needs Dagny's sanction of his greatness because she is one of the few individuals of intelligence remaining; however, he fears the accusation from Galt, that it was really Stadler who gave others the sanction to steal his greatness.

Although they have once issued negative statements regarding the metal, the State Science Institute now demands a huge order of Rearden Metal for their secret Project X, the purpose of which is mysterious, and only an incholate tagline is given: "an undertaking of great social value that may prove of inestimable public benefit." Rearden denies them this--as is his right--but the Institute gives a hint of a threat in reply. The Wet Nurse sent down to monitor Rearden's adherence to the new pieces of legislature tells him that although there are no absolutes, Washington's words are absolute--if they say it's highly important, then it is. Mere earthlings must not think--for thinking is just an illusion--but must obey the government, which incidentally, is the conclusion of Ferris' book.

Dagny and Rearden meet in haphazard intervals after long, hectic days--the tedium of the days are inherently insidious: it isn't as if they've lived, but as if they've survived their work. Through Rearden's revelations, their relationship develops, as well as Rand's Theory of Sex. Dagny verbalizes that their love is based on the knowing of each other's values--of how he lives up to her if he wants her. And as such, he has already won the right to view her as a luxury item ever since he poured the first Rearden Metal. As Dagny contemplates Rearden, she likens him to the man who belonged on earth--more precisely, the man whom the earth belonged to. But, from his realization that the question "why" is now answered with the muzzle of a gun--that no reason is given to him as to why he has to give all his customers equal shares of Rearden Metal when the arbitrarily-determined equal-share of 500,000 tons is not even enough for three miles of railroad track, that no explanations are given for any of the issued directives--and from his disillusionment that action is now impossible, Rearden is driven to a depression, wherein he feels no desire for Dagny--no will or care to live! It is only when he regains the world, his love and sense of it that the desire returns to him. He finds that that desire is a celebration not of his body but of himself.

The man to whom the earth belonged to must love it in order to live on it--to do so he must love his own life.

Chapter 10: Wyatt's Torch

2005-08-10T23:25:00.000-07:00

Through microcosms of striking parallel to the greater world, this chapter explains why Wyatt would want to torch his oil fields, leaving them as he found them.

The Twentieth Century Motor Company represents the world. It was created in an earlier era, that of great men--Jed Starnes--and it was inherited by the unworthy. Starnes' heirs attempted to remake the creed of the company as spiritual, beyond the physical, when it was purely the materialistic that made it good, and when they failed, the scavengers, the real evil businessmen, would come in to take their share of it. As a result, it went in decline and eventually collapsed into the rot of Starnesville.

Dagny's haggard tracing down of the man who created the motor brings her in contact with men of growing shades of evil. These are the "businessmen"--if they can be called that--to despise. Mark Yonts who manufactured the scandel of selling the company to two parties at the same time. Mayer Bascom who states that there is no way to get rich other than by slighting the law and cheating, implying that Rearden, who appears of obvious money, should well know this. He tells how he had bought it as a bankruptcy sale from Eugene Lawson, the owner of a bank that offerred anyone with need money, which, as a result, crashed and nullified everyone's savings. Eugene Lawson who claims that it wasn't his fault that he lost everyone's money, that "in all [his] life, [he] had never made a profit." Since he is now a member of the Bureau of Economic Planning, he suggests to Dagny that he can help her sway Mouch--but Dagny is more interested in finding the motor than winning the favor of an incumbent. Dagny finds herself in the midst of Lee Hunsacker whines that he never got a chance! Wasn't he entitled to wealth--he never got a chance because by the time he bought the company, it had become so dilapidated that train service had already been cut, and he couldn't run a factory without that, and moreover the only bank that would give him loans was a mere cheapstake--Eugene Lawson's bank didn't even have enough funds to back him up. These are the men who would have been worse off than the entropy of Starnesville if they had not other men to steal from--to manipulate the laws to create a distorted version of "wealth," to blame his faults on the greed of others, to claim that he was entitled to the good he never earned but others had worked for--but they are merely demons near Styx in Hades, evil but not evil enough to compete with the greater evil.

The Starnes heir is akin to the inhabitants of Dante's Seventh Circle of Hell. But, it seems like with Dagny's meeting of each heir, she descends into a deeper semblence of evil. Eric, who killed himself in order to hurt others. He is altruistic in that he cares not for himself, only for others, but he doesn't care for the good of others, rather, for the pain of others. He is reminiscent of Philip Rearden, who is disinterested, with no selfish intents, yet he, like Lillian and Mrs. Rearden, lives to hurt Rearden. Gerald, who claimed the factory went bust because it was bad--neglecting to rationalize who had made it bad. He is the eptiome of all the businessmen who complain that it was not their fault, it was the material's fault--like Orren Boyle, blaming circumstances for his mal-performance. Then, finally, there is Ivy, the purest of evil--it was she who machinated the plan that destroyed the company, the idealogy that killed the world. For the excuse of a greater spiritual plane, she reduced the well-being of the company with one fell creed, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Everyone was to be paid the same amount, no matter what they did, and they would be paid more based on need, and those who had ability who did not do as much as they could would be punished with overtime without pay. She claims that it failed because "they would not renounce their body." She has lost faith over human nature, that men were motivated by personal gain and not selfless brother love. She has since "recovered" by learning the triumph of the spirit over matter, living in the hovel that is her home, having destroyed a great company that was once the triumph of a living mind.

Yet, these are the types of dispicable people who now run the world. This is why the maker of the motor had left the world and his motor behind, safe knowing that the world--the fact that such losers now run it, implying the huge dearth of requisite intelligence to decipher the significance of the motor--would not be able to take this virtuous product of his mind. Similarly, Wyatt leaves his oil fields the way he found them--taking nothing from but giving nothing in return to a society of looting parasites: James Taggart who would use the John Galt Line as a drain for unearned wealth in exchange for letting others drain the railroad, the bonds of worthy men reduced to nothing in the blink of an eye--of money that is not absolute, of wealth that can be taken away on whim of an incumbent.

wouldn't be able to take much out of it other than the matter it was made out of--exactly what they have done when Dagny finds the motor in its stripped-down state.

Chapter 9: The Sacred and the Profane

2005-08-09T22:27:00.000-07:00

The structure of this chapter is based on a chain of sections alternating between the sacred and the profane. The series oscillates between obvious elements of the good and the evil. Yet, in each explictly-denoted sacred or profane section, there are more subtle contrasts of the sacred and the profane.

The chapter starts with Rearden and Dagny's verbal reaction to the sex they had after Wyatt's party. Rearden states that he does not love her, that he finds it depraved that he has reduced her once stoic, pristine, form to this bitch, that he needs her, nonetheless. It is thus his self-esteem that he's given her. Although Rearden's words foreshadows a deep evil plaguing his capacity for happiness, Dagny clearly admits that she submitted to him knowing the greatness he represented, his worth, and that she had earned him, the "proudest attainment," to look forward to at the end of one's arduous day. This is an overall sacred section, where Dagny and Rearden's relationship is put into words, but because of Rearden's (who is unable to free himself from the orthodox beliefs of sex and lust as sin) viewing their love as depraved, it is profane.

Starkly different is the relationship between James Taggart and Cherryl Brooks. Superficially, Taggart is attracted to her because of her ignorance, her genuine belief that he is one of the heroes who made the John Galt Line possible; he finds a different sort of pleasure from her in that she actually believes he is worthwhile, genuinely great--when the fact that he's merely a stooge, another parasite, is the secret source of contempt he receives from his colleagues. His real motive, however, is his feeling of "superiority of having put something over on her," having tricked her into believing him a hero, having made her believe that the slouch that he is is actually something great. Moreover, he triumphs in having filled her with doubts of greatness, that great men are unhappy, that even great men are vulnerable to being "flea-bait," that up there, it's even worse than the slums. Cherryl continues making up excuses to maintain her vision of him as a hero, perhaps too naive to see the truth of his core, or unwilling to believe that this was what she knew of as a great man. The setting of this section is aptly dark with James Taggart wandering a lower-class neighborhood alone in the night--he should have been jumped, but instead, he, the profane, has jumped this innocent girl, who still believed in the sacred.

Dagny and Rearden meet after having to deal with the aftermath of their success--the myriad newscasters wanting more details on Dagny, the immense amount of shippers wanting in on the John Galt Line, and as they make love, the goal to look forward to, the reward of a hectic day, it becomes apparant that the heroes' love is based on a capitalistic pride of mutual worth and trade--the sacred--while that of Brooks and Taggart is based on mutual deceit of worth--the profane.

The fourth section involves Mowen complaining about how somebody should do something about the dilapidated state of the world, how it's not right that everyone's moving to Colorado, etc., to a transient labor boy, who turns out to be Owen Kellogg, an ex-Taggart worker whom Dagny had offered anything for him to stay. In the midst of Mowen's profanity, his demands for his "share of that [Rearden] metal," Kellogg daydreams about the optimistic forecast in Colorado while competently doing his low-labor job. The profane jerks him out of his reverie, as Kellogg leaves the fantasy of the sacred, hinting at an omnious fact when Mowen asks him what's going to happen to the world--that Mowen wouldn't care to know.

In the fifth scene of the chapter, it is as if Rearden has escaped the shackles of the profane--that he should feel guilt for taking Dagny on as a mistress. He asks to take Dagny on a vacation--three weeks away from the world, the only break time they'll get for the next three years. In a solid ascertaining of his appraisal of her worth, he asks that she wears the bracelet of Rearden metal, and he puts it on her wrist, not caring what others would think, albeit if the news gets out, he would be the one who takes the harder blow. That a sacred love would be considered profane, if the media vultures down on it as if carrion.

In the last section of this chapter, Rearden and Dagny attempt a week of random wandering to begin their vacation. Heroes, however, cannot withstand aimlessness; for them, resting does not have to be purposeless, and Dagny proposes that they start visiting old ore mines and factories, ferreting out abandoned sites of natural resources and scavenging potential equipment. As they venture into the remains of the late Twentieth Century Motor Company, Rand illustrates the epitome of the profane: the broken remains of civilization, the wood-burning stone hearth that replaced an electric stove, now become a cupboard, the oil-cans used to draw up well water, the people living bereft of life, as if galvanized by mere chemical reactions to stimuli they cannot process meaning to. When Dagny and Rearden enter the factory, Dagny discovers the remnant of a motor that could have changed the world, "saved ten years off everyone's life," revolutionalized production--a motor that runs on static electricity, not requiring fuel to power it, an infinite and unlimited supply of energy. While every other source of wealth had been looted from the abandoned factory--the office had been raped clear of paper documents, re-usable parts scavengeed away--this motor had stayed left behind underneath piles of rubble, of popcorn wrappers, whiskey bottles, confession magazines... its useable parts had already been taken apart, stripped from it, the looters not capable of ascertaining the transcedent value of this motor. To Dagny, it's utter profanity that such a sacred item would be forgotten in the midst of a hopeless wasteland. To Rearden, the finding of the sacred galvanizes him into a plan of action, of finding the man who created it--and Dagny ascertains that she will find him. The desolate profanity that is the dilapidated setting of this section represents the world and the motor represents Galt, the rare mind born once in a century, capable of saving it or leaving it.

What is the profane, and what is the sacred? There is the common belief that anything carnal is profane, despite the nature of the act. But, when placed in juxtaposition next to the scenes of profound waste, of slow crumbling away, of a great life source lost underneath a pile of rubble, forgotten, even as the people pine away, struggling to live without life, with vacant eyes, listless uncaring... it becomes apparent that it is really one's actions that should be judged to be deemed profane or sacred. The uncaring let-to-rot attitude of the town that remains of the Twentieth Century Motor company is the utterly profane, as well as James Taggart's indifference as to what he wants--his smearing out of crisp clear thoughts to the fog of feelings. Whereas, despite orthodox beliefs of original sin, what Dagny and Rearden share is sacred--the mutual giving of pleasure as an act of tribute for mutual greatness.

Chapter 8: The John Galt Line

2005-08-08T22:51:00.000-07:00

This chapter epitomizes the story of an entity's rise to success: the uncertainty--denouncing by the people, the loneliness of its creator--in its developmental stages and the event that renders it successful, the act that renders proof against the rampant disbelief in its good. It concludes by showing how one should respond to success: through euphoric joy, the recognition that it was a living mind that made it possible, and that that mind should feel the pride of mastering it all--of the loneliness of the creator finding consolation in a consciousness like her own.

The media denounces Rearden Metal, but they are careful to avoid explicit statements of fact. Instead, they denounce by means of implications: If I had children, I wouldn't let them ride on the John Galt Line. Morever, editorial writers like Scudder would cloud their point by usage of a bunch of words pre-condoned pejorative by the collective mind, viz., arrogant, greedy, selfish unbridled individualist. Instead of making an explicit statement of fact that the bridge made of Rearden Metal would collapse or stand, Scudder claims that the importance of the issue is what protection does society have against these people who would use their judgment against the overwhelming majority opinion of experts? He goes on to allude that Dagny and Rearden should be "kept bridled [like mad horses] and locked on general social principles." Society's protection against the success of something good would be by preventing it, by stifling the very creators of that good.

Dagny sits alone in her dinky office, the bottom floor beneath floors that are about to crumble in a building about to fall apart. She looks out into the darkness of the night through her office window, and she feels a heavy loneliness. The sudden weight of her fight descends on her, and she feels a longing for a consciousness like her own. But, she becomes certain that she would never find it.

Yet, the launch of the John Galt line brings her the rare moment of happiness, of living the life she expected. Its success is a brilliant slap against the media's fog of ambivalent blasphemy and the people's supposed disinterested petitions aimed at stalling the John Galt Line. Moreover, Dagny does not allow James Taggart to attend the event--he would not get to share the triumph of her success, not detract from the moment of her greatness, ascension to joy. Unfortunately, he would be the one who later reaps in the momentuous results of her success, as Taggart Transcontinental becomes moucher: absorbing the John Galt Line that, by dissent of the media, it had been forlorn to.

Thousands of people bathe in the light of its success, as the train makes its way on schedule down the green-blue tracks of Rearden Metal. Sentries stand at posts seperated by a mile's length to protect the tracks from any possible sabotage, as if protecting something immensely pure from the effects of the unworthy. Crowds cheer as it passes, the first blur of motion zipping through towns that had only the uncertain mileu of dust moles to compare its speed to. It easily, effortlessly, spans across the bridge of Rearden Metal--it did not crash, and moreover, if it did, it's a fright train, and it would only be those of the business who go down with it. The John Galt Line has completed its course, despite the non-fact-based doubts of those who had denounced it, despite the lack of people supporting it, despite the public claiming the utterly irrelevant, that it's no good for its welfare.

Wyatt greets them, and he is as joyous as if a little boy. They celebrate and are happy, until Wyatt lets his pessimism get to him--that this wouldn't last, this joy, the world being the way it should be, working the way it should work. As Dagny finds in Rearden a consciousness like her own, she allows herself to deliver and receive the mutual pleasure representing the recognition of what their minds have achieved.

Chapter 7: The Exploiters and the Exploited

2005-08-07T23:02:00.000-07:00

The usage of the term "exploited"--the public welfare, safety, employment--is merely the dubious grounds upholding the excuse of the cowards, the real exploiters. Indeed, their so-called Equalization of Opportunity bill was decided on whim without even giving Rearden the chance to vote against it--so much for the equality of opportunity in the domain of votes. Moreover, the so-called necessary sacrifice of Conway's Phoenix-Durango Line for the sake of saving the world (to help the "exploited") ended up becoming a free-for-all auction, with vulture-like bidding of rail-become-carrion. The real exploiters--James Taggart, Orren Boyle, Bertram Scudder--attempt to convey that in a time of national need, the people must be taken care of, and from that weak basis, they begin their mouching looting.

Nealy represents man who has muscles but no mind--the exact image as prescribed by the new science of the day, that man is nothing but biological protplasm with delusions of grandeur. Yet, although Dagny hires him as a contractor, she and Wyatt have to give Nealy and his men the brains in order to get anything done. If businesses were run by the people--such people, that is--then just as how they do not have the brains to deal with a landslide, nothing would stand.

In the time of national emergencies, the villains have the leisure to entertain the incredulous debate on whether Rearden Metal, clearly an item that would help the national need, is a lethal product of greed. With a hidden intent, James Taggart almost corners Dagny into defending Rearden Metal against Scudder's fog of meaningless words. Dagny runs away realizing the purpose of the event, furious, paralleling how Cherryl Brooks whould later escape when she discovers the evil nature of the world. Dagny, however, ends up in a beaten-up bar, where she hears the story of John Galt being the one who found the fountain of youth. Interestingly, the tramp who tells her the tale defines morality aptly, but lets the media paint the faulty association of immorality with the industrial (Ayn Rand's theory of hobos?)--hence his despair, that the good (industry) is the immoral (greedy). The view of the exploiter looters is infectious, and in a way, the lack of good men is because of this anti-greed as pure notion.

The State Science Institute sends a minion to stifle Rearden's production of his Metal. Potter gives Rearden a Catch-22. If Rearden Metal is good, then it will be a social danger (unemployment, unfairness to other agencies). If Rearden Metal is bad, then it will be a physical danger to the public. When Rearden mentions he only cares about the latter, Potter is baffled. When Rearden refuses to sell the metal to the SSI--despite the assurance of the SSI to take the risks of chance away via a blank check--the intent of the SSI minion becomes clear. They wish to mooch. The supposed state-serving SSI is now clearly an exploiter, and if that is the case, then Rearden has become the exploited--that he would be threatened to have to sell the product of his spirit, of ten years of painstaking work.

More faults attempt to stop Dagny's flow of progress in the Rio Norte Line, as Mowan refuses to make the switches for no legitimate reason other than that there are too many people against it. When the SSI issues an ambiguous statement that does not state whether Rearden Metal is good or bad, it is somehow taken as a veto against its worth as the Taggart stock crashes. Dagny's subseqent meeting with Dr. Robert Stadler, the name which gives credibility to the SSI, reveals the secret malice of the SSI's plots. Stadler would attempt to convince Dagny that it is out of necessity--that the SSI is the only institute of science left in the world, and that an achievement in industry is worth sacrificing for this. Francisco aptly summarizes the man as a looter who justifies the seizure of my means for his ends.

Dagny tracks down James Taggart and announces the only solution to save Taggart Transcontinental. The Rio Norte Line must be saved, but the only timely way to do it is by using Rearden Metal--yet, the stockholders, legislators, etc., will have nothing of it! Dagny announces that she would take all risk for herself, creating a small company called the John Galt Line, which would assume all subsequent work required of the Rio Norte Line. Even as Taggart listens to a plan of reason that would bring him out of his spineless hiding, he plots of things to put over her--making sure that she realizes that if she fails, TT will not be held responsible, that she would not be able to re-assume her position as VP afterwards. Moreover, Taggart begins outlining contracts, binding her to return the line if she succeeds--moocher inherent. Dagny agrees to do this, not realizing the significance of the stigma, but wanting purely to spite them all by doing the impossible.

Although Francisco would deny her the money necessary to start her Line (while revealing his bitter unrequitted love for her), Dagny would receive ample support from men like Wyatt, Dannager, and Rearden--Rearden who does not view his contribution as a favor, but as an investment for the showcase of his metal. Ironically, although Taggart Transcontinental is under the rule of supposedly-exploited-friendly executives, they would not help this unwanted Line reduced to begging for alms--nor would banks or anyone else who does not have an immediate personal stake in it.

Rearden is faced with a bunch of people to deal with, when his mother makes a sudden unprecedented appearance in his office. She demands that he gives Philip a job, even though Philip wouldn't know how to do anything (and doesn't he hate Rearden Steel because Friends of the Globe deems it as evil?). As she attempts to sell Rearden the idea that virtue is the giving of the undeserved, it becomes apparent that the so-called "exploited" now attempting to leech off the exploiters--the very act of Philip wanting to attain a job here, where he would be purely useless, could only mean that he wishes to mooch off it.

Contrast Rearden's dealing with Mr. Ward, a harvesting-equipment owner in dire need of steel to persist. Like Rearden's mother, Ward comes to beg--but Ward begs with acknowledgment of his status, that he is helpless, and understanding of how Rearden Metal might be at peak-production already and gratitude that Rearden would help. Rearden's mother seems to expect alms from him without gratitude, to expect him to bend down despite his load, perhaps even ignorant of it. The fact that Rearden is willing to save Ward's life--the livelihood of his business--sheds a different light on the so-called exploiter that he is considered to be. Why would he help this man when he can make profits elsewhere? The fact is that the man, like he, is good, and he cannot bear the loss of another good man--moreover, he can handle the burden. This, an exploiter, helping a begger.

When the Equalization of Opportunity Bill is enacted, it becomes clear who the exploited is. Rearden, in his tendency to action, as required to run a productive business, has not harmed anyone, but has been exploited by incumbents and those ignorant of the real national crisis.

The traditionally-accepted exploiters have become the exploited in this chapter, as the heroes give their life-blood in order to continue their work--actions needed in order to run the things to save the world. The heroes work through hectic schedules attempting to continue their work, battling the lack of good men and resources and the stifling laws. Despite the miasma of injustice, Rearden manages to continue "business as usual," as he lets the epiphany of a new bridge design carry him away from the tsunamis of despair threatening to drown him.

(The chapter begins and ends with the prospects of an incredible bridge of Rearden Metal--the ending promises a better one. Subtle weave of hope.)

Chapter 6: The Non-Commercial

2005-08-06T22:14:00.000-07:00

The essence of the non-commercial is that of reason being stifled, suffocated by the miasma of unreason, the thinking mind forced to succumb to the blankness of aimless joy--a party where those involved do not know the purpose of celebration. Nay, the purpose of the hidden shackles in this social event is to compel in Rearden a greater sense of guilt in his flawed associations of certain vital things. The idea of his wife, whose virtue must be protected, undermines his capacity for happiness--that he does not view Lillian as his wife, as if he were the one who is depraved. The irony of his enemies coming to his party, protected from the storm outside under his roof, as if helpless children whom he supports, not noticing the burden of the action. Of Francisco, who would present himself as a man capable of reason, yet still succumb to actions that seem more degrading than that of the helplessly mindless. Of Dagny, who would have the audacity to trade her diamond bracelet for Lillian's bracelet of Rearden Metal--the very first thing that was created from Rearden's magnum opus. Of Dagny's actions which would provoke him to stoop down to being the doting husband, to avoid accepting the seemingly discordent feeling of affection he has for Dagny's realization of the worth of the bracelet, as well as pain for Lillian's disregard of the symbol representing that which means the most to him. This chapter is about Rearden's attempt to betray his own mind, to forgive his ability to reason.

Rearden does not believe that The Equalization of Opportunity Bill would ever be successful, and yet he does not let himself accept the nature of the guests at his party--the pronounced people of influence in society--their adament support of the bill, as well as faulty convoluted circular "reasoning" for it; he does not accept the fact that the remaining people of influence are from this stock of the most depraved, these apparently helpless people he's carrying. The fault is that if those who are in control have been reduced to this group of the dispicable--Eubanks, Pritchett, Scudder--then the realization of the Bill is perfectly likely. He believes that the world is sane, that its people good, that it cannot be that these scum and scudder would be the ones who decide, the ones in control. His constant tendency to avoid the party, to walk off to a quiet corner away from it all, embodies his will to ignore this fact, to continue living in the universe that he knows--that of Rearden Steel's blazing sign in the distance, the realization that it is he who works and effortlessly supports these people, the pride that he can afford to hold such a party, that his wealth came from his own ability.

Francisco warns him about the sin of forgiveness. Rearden can forgive his family for wishing him the pain of having to avoid the urgency of his work for their aimless chatter. Yet, forgiveness depends on one's ability to reshine the evil as something good. Rearden's tendency to ignore the malice of his family--his mother's insistance that it was she would had helped him through, yet had, in reality, been the one who constantly denounced the good in him--is due to his interpretation that their actions are good, that his mother wishes to show the pride of motherhood, and he would grant them happiness, only because he sees in them a reflection of him, refusing to see their true base nature.

A part of Rearden realizes this; he reacts to this nearly unconscious revelation in a twisted self-harming way. He is supposed to receive triumph in having taken his wife, but instead, when he feels that what he's won has no meaning--and he is left with a sense not of attainment, but of degradation. Because he has been wrongfully generous enough to give Lillian the title of "wife," he thus feels that his revulsion towards her is unjustified. His "love" for her has become the need to hold an anonymous woman as his "wife," now that he is no longer under the delusion of her reflection of him. He becomes convinced that his desire of her is depraved, that women who have no desire for physical pleasure are pure--that his desires of the physical are to be condemned. The weapon they have against him is wrought of his own psychological chains, and it is the one that makes him unhappy--the man who is denied the sympathy of his brother purely because of his non-commercial core.

The fact that Lillian invites Scudder, someone who has lambasted Rearden, though without solid facts, but with strings of meaningless adjectives, sheds nature of her "alliance" in this battle for earth. Her defense is her undercover identity as "his wife"--the fact that Rearden cannot bring himself to disassociate her from this standing, the shackles of duty he still harbors towards her. When Dagny trades for Lillian's bracelet of Rearden Metal, Rearden is faced with the transferrance of identity--to him, it is only proper that his wife wears that bracelet, and when Lillian gives Dagny the bracelet, it is a wreck against his paradigm. It also foreshadows the transferring of the title of "wife" from Lillian to Dagny. Lillian's shortsightedness that she holds onto Rearden by the unbreakable chains of guilt--that he had given his word to be a loving husband--undermines her hold over him.

With the realization of the sort of fetters his family has him by, Rearden would be equipped to escape the miasma of the world, to abandon his work, and stop supporting a world that holds joy as sin, happiness as being produced by the depraved. He would escape the chains of the non-commercial, to return to the rational universe of the commercial.

Chapter 5: The Climax of the d'Anconias

2005-08-05T22:36:00.000-07:00

This is d'Anconia's chapter. Dagny finds out that the San Sebastian mines had been worthless, devoid of copper, and she sets out to question Francisco on the reason for his actions. Despite the reports from the tabloids, a part of her still has hope in him, that he is still the man she had fallen in love with--still loves. As she walks to his hotel, she reminisces memories of him, their youth together, his accomplishments, his sheer nature--he cannot have become the depraved playboy without a reason. Dagny does not see his reasons, although when she confronts him at the Wayne-Falkland, he is still the man she remembers. She cannot bring herself to believe that she has become a destroyer of all that she holds as good, the trademarks of the world.

Francisco is expected to become the climax of the d'Anconias, but the sense of something not right with the world, his becoming convinced by Galt of the evil of the world and what must be done, makes it seem as if he has become an utter failure. The tradition of the d'Anconias is that every heir must earn his name, must increase the family's fortune, that the first heir to be unable to do that would be dead to the family. Yet, Francisco has not become forlorn to his heritage--his sense of "investment" is just a bit unconventional. Being equipped with the burden of having to destroy the remaining wealth in the world--to save the world from the looters--his "investment" would be a good one only if it damaged as many establishments of wealth as possible. His task would not be done until the world is fully destroyed, the good fully taken away from the hands of the looters.

Ironically, although people attempt to encourage the heroes to "have a good time," meaning to live aimlessly, have random fun, they are not pleased with Francisco's show of merely-human error and ways. The excuse of having betrayed the people of Mexico is used to attempt to wring guilt in Francisco and to lessen his name, that a rich bastard's mistake had denied the Mexican government from serving free food to the people, thus upping the standard of life of the crumbling country. What do they mean when they say "to have a good time?" They deny the fact that it is not possible for a hero to be "like them" (having pointless joy) and still be a hero.

Dagny and Francisco's relationship, essentially, begins and end with a "slap." When Dagny feigns the threat of losing herself to the mindless, to retract her greatness, receiving bad grades, for the stake of popularity, Francisco slaps him--the blow encapsulates his love for her as she is, that were she to join the mindless, that would be the most depraved thing she could do, and that it would hurt him beyond all. When Dagny beats Francisco, it is her first victory as well as her first acceptance of decision to do only her best--her decision that she would win, that she had to and would, that she'd die to do it. It is a creed--that of competence being the only standard left, of wealth being not based in rotting emblems, but in the great moving industries of the world--Francisco has been leaking to her, and when she finally accepts it, Dagny's beating him is really Francisco's victory--that he has her. They discover joy in sensuality from each other because they "had to learn it from each other," a double conundrum referring to both Dagny's education of the meaning of wealth as well as the methods of pleasure. The fact that their love had to be kept secret from a world, one which would lambast it as morally degrading, man's lower nature, foreshadows that there is something wrong with the world--that the world would view joy as sin. Dagny knows that Francisco will always be true to her, that indiscriminate desire and unselective indulgence are possible only to those who view sex and themselves as evil. Yet, Francisco lets Galt sway him--he's forced with the high chance of losing Dagny, as with infinite bitterness and as if crushed by a burden unholy, he forewarns Dagny of the events to come, yet being unable to tell her in clear objective terms what would come. To Dagny, Francisco is a lost cause--it is beyond heart break for her, but a horrible tragedy, "the destruction of what had been greatness." As Dagny exits, her verbal admission that yes, she still desires him, but it does not matter what she thinks, is a rhetorical slap that neatly ends their relationship. (Later, Rearden would give Francisco a physical slap. Rand likes ppl slapping each other.)

Because it was Francisco who had taught Dagny about wealth, that the only gold standard left is that of competence, it is germane that it would be he who would be the one who appears to destroy wealth--but it is only wealth as she knows it.

Chapter 4: The Immovable Movers

2005-08-04T23:01:00.000-07:00

Some movers quit or disappear, and some don't. The few who stay find solace in each other--that there exists at least one other competent person, and that the near future holds a "sense of clear outlines, of purpose, of hope," that they have a solution.

Flag words of this chapter:

motive power: to (with)stand; the embodiment of will
movement: to keep it immovable; action by the movers keep them going--by going, they are immovable, in the sense of being great citadels.
engines: to support it as foundation; engines=motor=movers

When McNamara quits, Dagny is overcome with a sense of loss--as if suddenly empty of energy, purpose, and desire. "As if a motor had crackled and stopped," as if McNamara's disappearance meant the loss of one more crucial engine in the world. His disappearance brings out the longing in her to find a power whose light she can bathe in, a greatness with which she could spectate, to appreciate. Wandering the streets of a depraved city--where people do not have the capacity to feel and experience, but live as if zombies--she realizes with a bitter sadness and wisdom that that fuel she needs for her own engine cannot be found in others. Her wish to find a moment's joy outside cannot be granted by the world, but only by her motive power, her movement--but then, that would not be outside of her.

The parasites, as epitomized in this chapter by James Taggart and Betty Pope, share the common pleasure--their form of joy--in destruction. They would rather stifle the engines' domain of movement; they wish to make things difficult for the movers, as a means to control them--to give them an artificial source of challenge that will divert them from realizing that there is no worthwhile challenge left in the world run by parasites.

When the San Sebastian mines are nationalized by the Mexican government, Taggart reacts smoothly in his speech given to the board--gracefully putting the blame on others, while giving the minions the excuses they will use to pacify those they represent. Despite having just eaten a bunch of loyal dogs, Taggart next triumphs in the Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule, successfully destroying Conway's competition in Colorado. Yet, Taggart Transcontinental does not have the means to compete objectively in the region--it is precisely because of their incompetency that Conway's business has thrived in the region, the only worthwhile alternative. As Dagny attempts to galvanize Conway to fight--to defy the tripe of "public welfare" the politicians have hidden the true nature of their scam behind--the first reference to the villains as "looters" is made. The villains have essentially looted Conway's business, forcing him to give way to Taggart Transcontinental, while at the same time giving potential to the possibility of looting the thriving businesses in Colorado--when the time comes and they have no means of transportation for their goods. This engine has used up his motive power, and Conway gives up, having worked his entire life and succeeded only to have his success taken from him--the first to be "sacrificed" in the name of public welfare, that when men must get together to fix the world, the majority could decree he dies.

But, Conway bows out by giving Dagny the bravo, bravissimo--that it is she who's taken the harder hit, the near impossibility of her task to come in the months ahead. Dagny returns to her office to ponder her strategy, and Wyatt bursts in giving his ultimatum that if he goes down, he's taking the rest of them with him. Unlike the looters, Dagny does not start her reply with a spiel of excuses; instead she states simply that he will receive his transportation. The secret joy that she's found a man like Wyatt, a fuel for her engine, foreshadows her mutual discovery with Rearden.

Dagny asks that Rearden deliver the rails sooner, as the original twelve month deadline has been cut to nine months due to the ADED Rule. Rearden accepts the challenge, and they watch the loading of the first shipment of Rearden Metal, while discussing the possibilities, realizing that the source of joy in each, the fuel for each engine, is in this sense of excitement over the movement to come--the actions to take, the work to be done, to look forward to--that the motive power is in the desire to fix the wrongs of the world, to save it from the villains, because they believe that ineptitude can only be weeded out, and that the world will one day be pure--the reality Dagny had grown up expecting to enter, but had not found.

Chapter 3: The Top and the Bottom

2005-08-03T21:15:00.000-07:00

Different types of people have different views of what's considered "the top" and "the bottom." This chapter introduces Taggart, Boyle, Mouch, and Larkin's sense of power (their "top"). Next, it describes Dagny's ascent to the top and Francisco's descent. Finally, it gives a glimpse of Galt, as Eddie innocently betrays McNamara's importance to Taggart Transcontinental.

The looters "relax" in NY's most expensive bar set on the top of a skyscraper, but it is made to look as if it is underground, as if a cellar. This contrasts with the Taggart employee's cafeteria, which although it is in the basement, is large and filled with light, as if a great expanse of open space. The topic of conversation reflects each respective setting. The looters plot plans powered by the excuse of vacillating philosophies of "public service" and "public's vital stake in natural resources." The policies the villains machinate are action-less in an absolute sense of things; they would be useless without the luxury of "friends" and looter-wrecked legislatures. As if to stress the diametric opposite nature of the conversation, Eddie dines in the "bottom," which despite its location has the sense of free sky, as if the "top," as spills out to Galt the factual details Galt will immediately use to stalk down yet another competent man, and to fracture the solidity of TT, even more.

Dagny's ascent to the top is her grim education of the injustices of a reality runned by the looters. Although she seeks challenge, every step of the way, she finds herself being burdened by the ineptitude of those around her. The looters would rather that she not be promoted, but they would do nothing to stop them--they vacillate, as the non-absolute is their ideal, and they will not directly stop her, but will just make it hard for her. Dagny is finally made VP in charge of Operations when she threatens to quit--although her judgment is valid, it is always stifled by the vacilation of the superiors she had to pacify prior to her ascension; she realized that her superior was not worthy of her efforts, and moreover, slowed her, infuriated her with his ineptitude. Although the superiors of the company do not like Dagny's decisions, they always (after considerable wasture of time on Dagny's part) succumb to them. Dagny is surprised when she receives the position--she does not know the extent to which they need her. Nor does she know the reason why they need her. Dagny believes she can fix whatever havoc her brother wrecks on the company. She is merely puzzled by James Taggart's actions, his faith-based belief in the San Sebestian mines. Just because it is a protege of the great d'Anconia does not ensure that it will succeed; they have neglected the facts--it is almost as if they do not want to believe in reality, that they would rather live in their world of false dreams, of false hope wishing that bad judgment is actually good--that the bottom is actually the top.

The Top and the Bottom are relative locations for one climbing a ladder, or attempting to maneuver in an established hierachy. Both Boyle and Nat Taggart are described to be no-namers who "succeed"--fame, money, power. Yet, their methods vary, and the sort of fame, money, and power they earn also differ. Boyle borrowed a huge sum of money from the government, and he now controls "an enormous concern" that had swallowed many other small-companies and no-namers. He obtains his money through arbitrary standards he machinates the other looters to create, such as the Industrial Efficiency of Globe magazine--he claims that such recognition makes his lacky business superior. Nat, however, raised his own money, inquiring from door-to-door of the people who owned the money--giving them reasons to back up his assurance of profit. Nat worked to create something crucial for the country, a transcontinental railroad--something revolutionary in its day--while Boyle worked to machinate legislative plots to destroy his competition. The money Nat made is so profound, it ensured that the company would stay family-owned for generations, but Boyle's money, mostly through governmental bonds, is so inferior that the remaining ore companies would rather not sell him the raw resources he would have misused anyway. To the unsuspecting public, whose version of reality is marred by the miasma of the media, Boyle seems to have climbed to the top--but the nature of his actions, the method of his ways, have all, clearly, set him at the very bottom. Thus, their appearance at the "top" is only an illusion, one that they desperately cling onto, their hope to continue living in a world of contradictions. Although Nat is lambasted by the media, his statue at the basement of Taggart Transcontinental conveys the height of the tier he's reached--perhaps higher than Icarus, beyond Daedalus--he has lived life facing a worthwhile challenge, that of creating something thought impossible in his day, and found joy in his capacity to meet it. And, he has become successful because of the truly worthwhile, while Boyle has only reached a mental fog of a pretend-worthwhileness.

Chapter 2: The Chain

2005-08-02T23:36:00.000-07:00

Rearden's life is Rand's embodiment of Atlas' struggles. This chapter, which introduces Rearden, is structured around the recurring notion of a "chain." Rearden's magnum opus of ten years--the launching of Rearden Metal--is seen from the perspective/POV of the mindless common people, himself, and his family.

The Taggart train is the chain connecting the mindless passengers to the wonders of Rearden's mills. They are unable grasp the complexity of it, which seemed "purposeless in the empty plane, yet too powerful to have no purpose." They watch without interest, and yet they comment, denouncing the importance of one man's achievements against the collective achievements, implying that Rearden is selfish flaunting his name over well-earned pride. They do not realize that the very train that makes their voyage possible was the sum of one man's achievements. Yet, these mindless fools are ubiquitious, a heavy sheet of chain-mail burdening Atlas' load.

Rearden fingers the chain made of the very first batch of Rearden Metal as he reminisces on his life. His struggles, the days when he collapsed, out of ideas, without a motor to go on, the longing for someone to come give him the extra impetus he needed--his realization that he would be alone, there, that only he could bring himself up, and he sits up, never wishing to depend on someone else for happiness. Yet, his happiness is embodied in the Rearden Metal chain; his happiness would blossom only if he could give it to the abstraction known as his wife.

His family puzzles him, but he gives them the benefit of the doubt, attempts to see the good in their action. His mother complains that he doesn't care about them, only pays for their bills, never gives them time; Rearden attempts to bend good into the words, that his mother misses him, shows affection for him. His brother claims he should spend less time doing the one thing that makes him happy--because it is unhealthy, that he should have some fun; yet, his brother does not ask him what makes him happy.

But, Rearden is too overcome with happiness--today is the sum of ten years of toil. He wishes to share his happiness, a part of him still hoping that his family has the potential to be human. When Philip tells him of his failed attempt to raise $10,000 for a purposeless charity, Rearden quickly offers him the money. He does it in hopes that it would make Philip happy. But Philip isn't happy, has no potential to be happy: Philip has no selfish interest in the matter whatever. (A charity that denounces the virtue of its source of funds, the so-called selfish businessmen, then proceeds to ask them for money. Obviously, their fundraising quest was doomed to start with. Was it for the purpose of making hopeless martyrs of their fundraisers?) Philip then asks for the sum in cash, stating that they would be embarassed to have Rearden as one of the contributors--especially when one of their proponents is that Rearden represents the "blackest element of social retrogression in the country." Rearden agrees to it, looking back out the window at his mills--knowing that whatever they attempt to take from him, nothing matters except that he will still have his mill. (They take that from him, anyway, later. But, Rearden's mill represents his soul--that is something they cannot take... but they can horde until he figures them out.)

Rearden presents the chain of Rearden Metal to his wife--or, the closest embodiment (he knows thus far) of the abstraction of his wife, Lillian. He had wanted to share his happiness with her, but instead, she spills out the unfathomable incurable sadness in her soulless shell. Lillian views it all as a game, and she gaily spills out their secret--"it's the chain by which he holds us all in bondage." His family holds him in guilt, responsibility/obligation--that he should yield to them, that they are "his family," yet they do not act appropriately. His family binds him because they need him--because he is capable of making bracelets of Rearden Metal, a man who can feed them, a host for voracious parasites. The chain of Rearden Metal is what binds Rearden to the world--that despite all its horrors, its sorrows, lack of good people, there is still the prospect and joy of his work, his mills.

QED

Who is John Galt?

2005-08-01T19:30:00.000-07:00

The rhetorical question, "Who is John Galt?" is presented multiple times in the first Chapter. The first section, where Eddy walks through the streets of a crumbling New York City, starts and ends with this question. Both times, it is said by the same "type of man:" the hobo and then Pop Harper. They are men who know what's wrong with the world, but they no longer give a damn about it. Both have become wearied by the toils of the world--the hobo has given up already and Pop has struggled his whole life to finally discover the ultimate amelioration: to give up.

Contrast this "type" of man with Eddie, the common man. Eddie is annoyed by the question, partly because he is still optimistic enough that the world can be saved and partly because he refuses to believe that there is a fatal, deadly, flaw in the world. He does not know what is wrong with the world, but he has this sense of dread, of impending doom. When this fear gets the better of him, he would chide himself that it's silly of him to feel this. He would deliberately avoid the bankrupt stores on the 5th Avenue, to foster impetus to his happiness in the stores that still remain. He ignores the bad, the crumbling buildings, the myriad homeless, and throws his full faith into the good: that there is still that much greatness--the competent bus driver making an expert turn, the clean white curtains--left in the world. Eddie's memories recall the image of the great oak tree, which he had heroized as a child; he remembers when lightning strikes it, his discovery that the tree was only an empty hollow--the sense of immense betrayal. He finds that memory silly to have come up at this moment; he would rather not face the truth. The plight of the common man is that he refuses to see the whole picture, lest it would shatter his dream, and it is this crucial difference that sets him apart from the hero. For, in A.S., the hero is merely the common man who obeys the doctrine of non-contradiction, that A is A. As simple as that may sound, it is the hardest thing in the world, and very few men are capable of it.

Enter John Galt. To the mere mortals of the world, the expression "Who is John Galt?" is one of despair--who would think that one man could bring down the whole world? Then again, that would be possible if the whole world were made and maintained by one man--one "type" of man. Behold, the Randian hero.

Chapter 1: The Theme

2005-08-01T18:48:00.000-07:00

The first chapter outlines the novel.

The hopeful common man struggling against the puzzling and unjust non-absolutes is represented by Eddie's first confronting of James Taggart regarding the Rio Norte Line. Eddie walks through the crumbling streets of New York uncertain as to what's wrong with the world, a part of him unwilling to accept the truth of it. The sense of an impending doom present through a telltale feeling of unease foreshadows the inevitable fall of the world. But, the common men will still attempt to live in it, to attempt to right its wrongs, however vain, as Eddie attempts to get Taggart to deal with the urgency of the Rio Norte Line's state. He fails in getting Taggart to do anything, and when the heroes leave the world, there would be no one left to maintain it.

Dagny's success in restarting a stalled train (and her refusal to let it stand still) foreshadows the gist of her role in the novel: that of the nervous girl constantly attempting to move things, the action of putting in the extra force to galvanize things after they've been stopped not a barrier.

When Dagny announces to Taggart that she has canceled Boyle's contract for steel for Rearden Metal, Taggart fights back with threats of "lengthy processes" and her inhuman inability to "feel"; through her judgment and absolute decision to action, she momentarily thwarts the common man's antagonist, but she lets Taggart's words sink in, and a trace of the villains' hold over the heroes is revealed--the villains can manipulate the heroes. (But, in the holistic course of things, the villains will not be Dagny's real antagonist; her true nemesis would be Galt: she would attempt to keep the world running despite his draining the world of men, and she would be unaccepting of his ultimatum to leave the world behind.)

Finally, when Owen Kellog leaves stating that it is nothing in the station that had prompted his decision to quit, and that he will not stay no matter what promotions are offered to him, Dagny confronts her first real opponent: "the destroyer," the menace that has drained the world of its life force, the men of ability--the good men. Although Galt, the person, is not mentioned explicitly in the first chapter (perhaps he is the brakeman Dagny meets earlier), he has already taken his toll: he has extracted yet another good man from earth--a problem that will become profound, later on in the novel. When Dagny asks "why," Owen replies with, "Who is John Galt?" Owen knows who Galt is, and he is infinitely bitter that the man has forced him to abandon his love of his job for his love of his life.